


An Unexpected Gift

by boogiewrites



Category: Taboo (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dream Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fate & Destiny, Healing, Magic, Spells & Enchantments, Witchcraft, dream walking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 14:53:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17962667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boogiewrites/pseuds/boogiewrites
Summary: A woodland witch is sent James Delaney to care for by the spirits of the river after he's attacked by hit men from the East India Company. She mends him, questioning their meeting as the spirits tell her he is a gift to her. They find an odd connection and unlikely fondness shared between them as they find respite in knowing another with powers like theirs. She heals him and sends him on his way, but fate has other plans on making their paths cross again. What do the spirits have in mind for them as they keep pushing them together? And is it in the cards for them to stay together?





	1. Chapter 1

The East India Company was out to end James Delaney. But this was nothing new. This time after a well-fought ambush by the river while preparing for a ritual, he's beaten and knocked unconscious by a hard blow to the head. It was most restful darkness he had felt in some time.

As the river speaks to him, it tells him where he needs to go, this time showing him and taking him itself. He floats down limp and loose, through the woods unnoticed by any living humans on the shore. The spirits who sing to him know where to take him and he does not fight through his state of forced consciousness to interfere with their plans. They wash him up deep, deep into the forest. A place he'd never been before. Pulled towards a soft bank, the river leaves him for another friend of theirs find. They knew she would be the one to help him, and in return, he help her.

Sylvana, a natural born woman of nature and so-called witch by the villagers who resided closest to her woodland home. She didn't dispute the title. As her skills varied and changed, it all depended on what the world around her wanted, not her. She accepted a long time ago as a child, taught by her female relatives that she was never in control. One is always at the mercy of the mother and to fight against it is to lose your connection. There was no self-importance, no shame or superiority among humans. We were all one and she lived her life in accordance with those rules. She would have ideally never committed harm to any living thing with malice in her heart. But being a woman who lived alone, and one no one understood, led her to have to defend herself on occasion. She had talked to the spirits, had long conversations with the trees and the river about these instances and she felt she was forgiven. She was the only one left in her family and she felt that the world needed someone to keep balance, to keep their old ways alive. This is why she fought.

On a dreary day, she feels compelled to gather by the river for supplies. With her self woven baskets mounted onto her horse, they walk slowly and purposely through the woods. There was a murmur amongst the spirits today. The river was singing loudly, wearing red ribbons and the spirits within it telling her they sent her a gift.

"Your existence is a gift." she whispers and bows her head, her feet bare against the moss and thick layers of leaves along her beaten path she followed. She feels a rumbling, something of a disturbance in her otherwise peaceful woods. It grows stronger the farther down she walks. But she does not fear it. It means her no harm, but there is darkness there.

She rubs the side of her horse's face gently, tilting her head and looking at the man's body washed up on the river bank.

"This is your gift?" she asks, leaning down next to him, gently her fingers covered with soot from her fire in her home, mark his already ruddy cheeks as she moves him to see his face. A resounding yes, a chorus of enthusiastic voices respond as she looks to the moving water in question. Her long dress and cape with a hood cover her, the tattered ends now wet in the sand and mud of the ground as she kneels and checks the man for a pulse. He was alive, but it seemed that could end at any time. She takes a deep breath, standing over him and hoisting him up to a sitting position. She uses her strong body to move him to her horse. "Prieten." she says in her quiet voice she rarely uses, calling her horse to help her. It kneels in understanding, helping her put his body across it's back and carry him back to her home. She walks with her hand on his head, feeling him, reading him as they walk. There was something different about him certainly, a ghostly grey light, a dark center that shifted from time to time, giving way to a hidden brightness that refused to die despite the darknesses continuous attempts. She could not know why he had been brought to her, but as she had promised from a young age, she would protect and heal all she could that nature sent her way.

She had healed people before. Townsfolk and villagers came to her for things when they were out of options. She'd cured the sick, brought the dead back to life, given people love and fortune. It was a necessity in this rapidly modernizing world around her. Money for things she needed, keeping her supplies and pantry full to last her through harsh winters. So healing a man wasn't something new for her. But she didn't see wounds like these often, they were always sent to the hospitals first, not to her. She drew out infection mostly, but this raw wound healing was something that would take her full energy and all her time.

She carries him into her small home, a place nestled against a mountain, covered in foliage and moss, made of stone and wood. It had stood for generations, hidden and protected in a thicket of the woods, trees only younger than the mountain itself it nestled against and surrounded it. She lays him on her bed, large enough for two people, made from her sheep's wool and feathers, soft fabrics she'd bought and woven to bring it all together on a bed frame of untreated wood. She takes her worn, deep green cape off, hanging it by the old rounded wooden door. She sticks her head out to gesture to her horse, giving it a nod as it returns the display and goes to the barn with the other animals. She locks the door with the heavy padlocks she'd installed for safety. It seals the protective circle she begins encasing them in, sensing this man would need to be hidden.

She moves over to him, his breathing irregular, not being able to tell if it was sweat or water from the river that rested on his face. She goes to her small section of cabinets, across the room from a still roaring fireplace. Shelves covered the walls, some built into the walls themselves, some made of wood and hung. Baskets that she and her ancestors had made sit full of supplies for both magic and mundane things. She takes a drink of her blessed wine to center herself, laying a cloth out on the countertop to gather ingredients. She returns to him, taking his clothes off piece by piece and assessing the damage done to him. She finds many injuries. Some were on the surface, she could tell he'd been kicked and beaten. There's a freshly healed stab wound in one side of his stomach, but it had been replaced in another part of his side by a new one. After stripping him, finding curious markings all over his body, she runs her fingers over his unusually tanned skin. Englishmen were so pale usually, but this man was touched by the sun somehow. Dark bands wrapped around his strong thighs and arms, various shapes that meant nothing to her marked his back and torso. She touches the scars set in purposeful patterns, her fingers tingling with the unusual energy coming off him. She works silently, listening to his breathing, hearing the crackle in his chest as she places her ear to it. He was a bit cool to the touch, having lost blood and having been in the river.

She moves to heat up water to fill the large tub that she sits in front of the fire to warm him. She whispers over the water, pouring in her mixtures and herbs as she states her intent. Hoisting him up, he slumps against her as she puts him into the tub limb by limb. She rests with heavy breaths on her knees next to it after moving his heavy body. He looked strong and sturdy and she guessed he was with how much he weighed. She pours water over the gash in his head, taking a soft cloth and wiping away the dirt that had worn into his skin. She holds his head up like a baby's, chanting over him, cleansing both his body and his energy as she tries to rid of the negativity that the injuries had been brought with upon him. She hears a faint groan from his open lips, one split open, his brow cracked along with the wound on the top of his head. When his body feels warm again and he's ready to patch up, she brings him back to the bed. This time laid on a pile of furs, she continues her work, packing the open spaces with her healing mixture. Once he is nursed fully, bandages wrapped around his entire torso to steady his ribs and keep everything in place, his arms, and head in matching adornments, she sits him up into her lap, pouring liquid to keep him asleep so he can heal after wrapping him in layers of softness. She meditates, her hands on his head as she tries to pull light into him. He responded well to it. Unusually well. He took to her magic like second nature, as he knew it already he soaked it up greedily and she found herself exhausted quickly. She takes one of her healing talisman's from around her neck, kisses it and places it around his neck.

She stays quiet, but this is usual for her. She listens to his breathing grow steady as she moves around her space, clearing out the tub and making herself some restorative sustenance. After she's eaten and drank her fill, the night is heavy in the sky. She sees to her animals, letting them know there was a man staying with her, and to be on the lookout for any humans coming her way. As they all worked together for survival, they of course, take her words to heart as she had never done wrong by them.

Returning to her home, she settles in for the night, unwrapping her patient to check on him another time, seeing nothing out of the ordinary she wraps him back up. She has so many questions for this stranger, and her curiosity only grows as she lays beside him in the dark. With the potion in his system, she decides she would speak to him on a different plane. She falls asleep, her body next to his as she begins the act of getting inside James Delaney's head.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvana infiltrates James dreams and speaks with him. As usual, he's not happy about the situation he finds himself in.

She is bare against the air of the outside world as she prefers it. Her experienced feet walking along the moss and mud knowing their way in the woods she called her home. The air around her is thick and heavy, a blue-grey haze of fog, making the distance she can see ahead end prematurely compared to what it would've been in reality. 

She fears nothing and knows no shame in her nakedness, she had no room for such feelings in her life. For her, everything that compromised the entire human condition was nothing to feel any guilt over. Whatever guilt the Christians had put upon the people and their culture over the years since it's creation, she had no use for. She was one with nature, and it was one with her, whichever taboo's that the people who lived in the cities and villages kept for their way of living, she didn't partake in. Covering herself was a means of survival when done, in the summer she would work her land free and wild, feeling the dirt against her skin, the sun kissing her as it bathed her in its light.

But there was no summertime in this man's head. The woods were gloomy at dusk, a dull roar of insects as she moved towards the source of rippling in the river. She approaches him slowly but feeling no worry for him. He's waist deep in the water, hands above his head. His skin looks like white tree bark, covered in paints and powders she found familiar. Strands of beads fell around his neck and into his hands. She too used things like these in her rituals. Her curiosity only grew as she stepped into the cold water. 

He turns, a hard and menacing look on his rugged face, black soot marked across his, obscuring his features even though she knew them well, as they rested right beside her in her bed at that moment. His eyes bore into hers but he finds no fear there. A feminine face set in indifference, a naked body slowly disappearing as it walked towards him, the river rising up her stomach, her hands resting flat on the water. They stand and look at each other, water lapping against them as she studies him curiously. He didn't see the usual fright laced within the curiosity. She wasn't there to gawk or fill some sick fantasy, she was full of questions and for no reason other than gathering knowledge. 

Once she is finished looking at the markings on his body, she returns her eyes to his. Both sets of dark eyes with a similar but confusingly different power set behind them drank in the other. Her eyes sat far apart, giving a look of innocence to her, her hair was long and untamed, the ends being grabbed at by the water's current as it moved around them. 

"Did you do this?" he finally asks, breaking the silence. His voice is deep and rough, it matched his hard brow and intimidating posture he held his broad shoulders in. 

She nods directly. 

"Why are you keeping me here?" he asks, leaning in, finding there was no need to try to scare her, for her face stayed the same, her mind unreadable to him as he tried to gather answers from her body language and gaze. 

"You're hurt." her voice is a whisper like a breeze, a breathy and dark sound that he doesn't expect to emanate from the soft looking body in front of him. "The river sent you to me." she begins to explain, her chin moving slightly as she spoke. His tucked in lip moves, his brow shifting as she so airly moves closer. "I gave you milk to make you sleep so you can heal. Your injuries are grave. I am giving you time to heal." she elaborates, her eyes leaving his and moving to his body as the wounds begin to appear on his skin. 

"I have things to do. I cannot be kept like this." he gruffs out, shoulders squared against her as she reaches out and touches his head. He senses blood starting to pour down his face as the pain stings through him, making his eyes blink rapidly, giving away the hurt. 

"You could die from the wounds. You would know this if you would stop and listen." her dark and smokey voice intrigues him, her fingers moving to touch the wounds, each burning every time. She raises her hand to show him the blood dripping from her fingers. "You must be afraid to feel the pain." she states.

"I am not a man who fears pain." he answers curtly. 

"Then feel it." she says as she pushes her hand against his chest and it all hits him, he staggers back, grunts and groans escaping him as he doubles over, his face shooting over to meet hers set in an authoritative pose. "I am keeping it from you with my magic. The spirits sent you to me to heal, and that is what I intend on doing. Can you not listen to them either?" she asks with narrowed eyes, bending at the waist and patronizing him. 

He reacts with controlled anger. "Is that how you are here? Magic?" he grits out.

"Yes." she nods. "You know of it don't you?"

He gives her a cold stare, she senses him trying to dig within her for answers. 

"You can ask questions. No need to use your energy to ask without words." She feels him succeed and she reaches out her hand. "Take it. Accept my help and the pain will stop."

"I said I do not fear it."

"And needless suffering is exactly that isn't it? Needless." she states flatly, her hand not moving. 

He groans and takes it, his grip stronger than she expected, a good sign, she thought. The pain fades, he takes a deep breath, standing back up straight as their hands clasp together. He stares at their joining, there wasn't the usual loud madness he felt when he touched someone. He wasn't flooded with whispers and fears and thoughts as they touched. There was only silence.

"You are safe with me. I will heal you. You do not owe me anything for this. Rest and repair. If the mother believes you to be worth saving, then I will not question it."

"What do you know of the mother?" he asks, his brow lowering. 

"That I am her. And she is me. Same as you." she answers simply. 

He raises his chin, looking down at her with a curiosity of his own now. 

"May I ask your name?" she says gently. 

"Do you not know it?" he asks, lowering his face. 

"I do not ask questions I already know the answer to." she states flatly. 

"Hmmph." he nods, an almost amused sound. "Then you do not know who I am. What people say I am."

"What people say you are is of no interest to me. I am only interested in what you are. A name helps humans communicate. I wish to communicate with you." she asks gently, her tone never showing any annoyance with him. 

"James." he answers. "And what is yours so that I might know you?" 

"Sylvana." the word rolls out of her mouth and he feels it moves across his skin like silk. He could feel the feminine power come off her. She was completely self-assured. A simple statement of her name telling him so much about her, that she was indeed powerful in ways he longed to understand. She did not have evil within her, there was in fact only good that dragged against his mind as she spoke. She meant him no harm and he believed her. 

"And what is it people say you are Sylvana?" he asks, his head tilting in an almost playful way, his face still stone. 

"Something similar to you I imagine." she nods back with a challenging tone. "Although they do not fear me as they do you." 

"How do you know I am feared?"

"You expected it of me." she says obviously. "That means you are something they do not understand as well." she pauses as the air between them calms, a thread of understanding forming between them. "They call me a witch." she states quietly. "What do they call you, James?"

"The Devil." he says with a microscopic smirk to his lips. 

"You are not the Devil." Sylvana gives him a soft smile and it surprises him.

"No?" the more lighthearted tilt to his expression stays. "They call me mad." he adds, his head dipping down slightly. 

"And are you?"

"I thought I was once," he says, eyes looking away and into the distance, into a memory. "But I was taught this is not madness. It is a gift." his eyes return to hers. 

"People call me mad as well. But I have never thought it true." she adds with a kind tone. 

"Then perhaps there are things we can learn from one another, hmm?"

"Like what the markings are on your skin?" she suggests, her fingers gentle on his arm caked in white, dried dirt. 

"Or what magic it is you use to keep me locked in this place." he says with a pointed finger at her.

"Herbs." she states simply. "Herbs and intent. Isn't that all magic?" she says with a subtle shake of her head.

"Ah." he says with a quickly passing smile. "You are a witch." he shakes his finger again at her before dropping his hand back into the cool water. 

"And what is your magic?" she asks him, her fingers still moving across his skin as she looks him over, trying to find meaning in the paint he'd covered himself with.

"Not the same as yours. But born from the same mother." he says with a subtle nod. 

"So we are connected." she muses quietly, voice almost a whisper. "I thought that I felt it within you." she retreats her hand and returns her eyes to his. 

"Everything is connected." he responds with a quick tilt of his head her way. 

"It is." she nods in response. "But you felt different from a common man. Those like us are not the same as those who call us mad and evil. We are connected in different ways. I haven't felt that connection outside of my ancestors." her voice is quiet and he isn't sure if she even means for him to hear her. 

"Neither have I." his voice deep and rich, leaning in towards her. "I have never had anyone enter my dreams like this, Sylvana. Not without my permission." his eyes narrow as he studies her. 

"Have the spirits spoke of me to you?" she asks casually. 

"Mmph." he nods and grunts.

"Then perhaps you already knew to let me in."

"Have they spoke of me?" he asks with interest. 

She nods. "They said you were a gift." her eyes large and honest as they look into his guarded ones. 

"A gift, eh?" he looks into the water, as if trying to hear it speaking to him. 

"What did they speak of me?" she inquires

"They told me to find you." he hums. "When I was floating down the river." 

"And so you have." she says with open arms. 

"Why is it that they have brought us together Sylvana?" he asks, leaning in closely to her, his eyes intense as they stare aggressively into her own. 

"They do not answer our questions." she states. "And I do not know the answer." her voice is even and calm as she stands her ground, not so much as flinching at his presence. "They said to take care of you. And I am." she states plainly. 

"When will you let me wake?"

"When the pain would no longer be unbearable."

"I can take the pain. I have things to do. I would like to know you outside of here. Outside of this place. Let me wake and know you're real."

"Do you not know if I am real?" she asks with a tilt of her head.

"I do not."

She nods thoughtfully, he wasn't an omniscient power of some sort, he was limited in his abilities. But if what he was saying was true, and no one had ever come into his dreams in such a way, then the uncertainty was understandable. "For what it is worth. I am. You are in my home. In my bed with me. I have soothed your wounds and we are sleeping. We are safe in my home. It is hidden and protected."

"Then let me wake."

"You will wake when the potion wears off." she says quietly. "Come morning I will wait, I will tend to your wounds and give you something for the pain."

"I need to get back to the city."

"You need to heal." she says sternly. "If you try to leave now you will die."

He sees it's not a threat but a fact from her strong insistence. "How long?" he asks with an unhappy lilt. 

"I do not know. I am used to treating infection, sicknesses modern science do not understand. Physical wounds are not something I treat often. But I will work as fast as I can."

"That's not good enough."

"Take it up with the mother then. As I am following her orders and can only work within her rules." he feels a flare of anger within her at his stubborn ungratefulness. "I'll leave you to rest." she says coldly before turning to walk back towards the shore. 

He stands, brow low over his eyes again, teeth gritted tightly as she moves up the bank and into the woods, disappearing from sight. 

"Sylvana." he says, looking around his world. He sees his mother in the fog as she usually is near the water. He asks her without words who she is. Her face is calm, not full of screaming torment as it had been as of late when he sought her out. She does not answer, she simply follows the same path as Sylvana, out of the water and into the woods and out of sight. James sighs and grunts, deciding she was telling him to follow this new witch, that there was no harm to be found in the path she led for him. He moves slowly, his feet firmly planted in the mud of the riverbed and stalks up the embankment, studying the path they both went down before moving to follow it himself.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An awake James proves to be even more stubborn than an asleep one for Sylvana. After ignoring her warnings and failing at his way of doing things, he reluctantly accepts that she knows what she's doing.

Sylvana wakes before James. The sound of birds outside her window let her know the sun was beginning to rise. She stirs softly, moving under the layers of blankets to stretch and rid her body of the heavy weight of sleep. She watches him continue being under the hold of her potion, placing her hand to his chest and finding his breathing even, calm and no longer shallow or forced. 

As her first project of the day, she decides to wash his clothes as they were bloody and covered in mud. She starts tea, going out to feed the animals and gather eggs. When she comes back she finds him to be more unsettled, beads of sweat forming on his brow as his eyes and lips twitched. She assumed he was growing impatient, so she takes a few layers of fur off of him and wipes his face with a damp washcloth before moving back to the fire. She sips her tea, looking over the leaves, seeing if they have anything to tell her. They're splayed and chaotic, she hums and looks over to the man in her bed. She wondered if they read for what he would bring into her life, or what he would unleash within her. She spends a good amount of the rest of the morning washing his clothes, scrubbing them out in her iron pot, the water as hot as her skin could handle as she brushed out the many layers, setting out his shirts and sewing the holes that had been created in the struggle. She lets the sun and wind dry them, letting them penetrate the fibers to take away the city that had been worn into them. He needed a clean, fresh start to heal so she would try her best to give that to him. 

He fights out of the heavy blanket of sleep he's been under. His eyes fluttering open first to find pain in doing so. He moves to take a deep breath to force life back into his body, but he gives out a pained groaned when he tries. He feels his body shift slightly, his eyes adjusting to the dim light of the room he was in. He can tell there's a fire and he can smell a sweet flowery sort of scent in the air. His eyes belatedly open fully, his brow low with his mind slowly understand the amount of injury it had taken and the pain coming from it. He finds he can move his head, even if it does make his eyes blur and feel like he's being tossed about at sea to stir it. He turns it towards the cause of the shift in the bed and finds the same woman that was in his dream. So she was real. She looked slightly different now, she was fully clothed for instance. Her long thick dark hair pulled to one side in a braid, her skin tanned with even darker almost black eyes and prominent cheekbones. Her face was set in an innocently curious expression at him as he stared up at her. Her face had sharp cheekbones but a feminine softness to it. The thick eyebrows offset with long lashes and full lips with a rounded chin. He couldn't tell how old she was, she could've been older than him or much younger, he could feel an old soul resided within her, giving her a timeless appearance. He did find her to be pleasing to look at. For what that was worth. 

She places a cold, damp washcloth to his face, dabbing away at his injuries. The chill makes his eyes shut and release a ragged sigh from his bruised lips. Her eyes stay to his wounds, moving to set the cloth back into a small bowl of water then back to begin removing the layers of blankets from him. Neither speaks. He silently watches her, sure now that she was the same woman he'd spoken to and seeing as she didn't feel the need to converse, he preferred it to be that way as well. There was blood through the bandages now, but that was to be expected. She runs her hands over his torso lightly, feeling for any signs of further damage. When she finds none she gives a solid nod of approval. 

"You need to eat. Would you like to change your bandages first? It will hurt a great deal. I can give you something for the pain if you wish." she says simply, sitting on her knees next to him, her hands clasped in her lap as she finally meets his eyes. 

"Bandages first." he grunts out, beginning to move his arms since he was no longer swaddled. 

Another soundless nod from her as she crawls to sit above his head, his brow furrows in confusion. "I'm going to move you into my lap. You need to be elevated." even in his foggy state he appreciates the straight forward nature of her statements. She links her arms under his and pulls him up, he uses his to help and finds the pain red hot and seering, his teeth gritted as it throbs through him and his head begins to spin again. "Lay your head back," she says, a soft cloth placed behind his head. "I need to change your head dressing as well. You have an open wound there. A stab wound to your torso and cracked ribs. You will feel disoriented and that is expected. Try to be calm. Anything else will only hinder me from healing you." he lays still, taking the pain as it came, his breathing ragged and shallow as he forces himself through it. She was rather impressed with him, she expected him to scream and thrash, but he took it like a stone. "You are healing correctly." she mutters, leaning over his face, tending to his torso and cleaning and reapplying her mixtures to his skin. 

"Mmph." he answers, the lump in his throat shifting as he shuts his eyes and allows her to work uninterrupted. 

She moves away slowly, replacing her lap with a sturdy pile of pillows. "Eat." she says as she lays a blanket across him, leaving the rest of him bare to air out, see if his body regulated its own temperature yet. He saw that she was not phased in the least by his nakedness, watching her treat him with very little interest whatsoever, she seemed to be going through the motions of care and he found himself more and more interested as he took in the mysterious contents of the home he found himself in and the woman who owned it. 

"I don't eat. Give me Brandy." he says, looking at the steaming broth and chunk of bread she held in front of him. 

"You will eat if you want to heal." she states flatly. 

"Brandy." he insists and she does not flinch. 

"There is no brandy for you here. If you are so eager to leave as you say you are, you will eat this to speed up the process." her eyes and face are flat, showing no intimidation in them just like they had inside his head. "Eat this and I can give you something for the pain."

"Do you have laudanum?" he asks, his brow low as he sighs.

"No." she says with more bite to her voice. "My medicines can be carried throughout your body with the nourishment of this and will also aid in healing you better than any modern thing will," she says as if she were offended. "I know what I am doing James. Do as I say." she orders him with no malice. 

He turns his head to give her a curious look, she still holds the bowl out, not succumbing to his stubbornness. She could tell that this was not a man that was used to being told what to do. But his preferences didn't mean anything to her, he was there for her to do her job. His lip snarls slightly, a groan and a hiss of sound escape him as he takes the bowl from her. She gives a nod and gathers the used bandages, placing them into a boiling pot that hung over the fire. There was only one window in the large open room and it was covered in fabric to block out the light. The round room was full of shelves, all filled with bottles, jars, and vials of things both known and unknown to him. Some written in English, some not, and all giving off some sort of energy as he looked closer. He eats the soup, his body not used to the amount of food or even something that would be considered real food. He didn't have to sustain himself in that way since Africa had taken him over and it felt oddly nostalgic to him. He didn't care much for it. 

As promised, she gives him something for the pain after he manages to eat most of the contents of the bowl. After quickly throwing back the extract he lays it on the bed instead of handing it back to her, throwing off his blankets with a strangled moan at the exertion. 

"Where are my clothes?" he asks angrily. 

"I washed them. They're outside drying."

"Mmph." he grunts unhappily. "Why did you do that?" he continues on his pain driven annoyed tone. 

"Because they were filthy and you need clean clothes so you don't become infected." she states obviously, sitting at a small table and sipping away at the soup herself. 

"I have things I need to do," he says, trying to move his legs and making slow progress out of the bed. "Go fetch them." he says with a wave of his hand, sweat already forming on his skin from the effort. 

"If you try to leave you won't make it." she states with a straight face, standing by the side of the bed and watching his stocky limbs make their way to put his feet on the floor. Once again she was impressed, but knew with the head wound he wouldn't get too far once he managed to stand and walk. 

"I'll get them myself." he says, trying to stand and failing the first time. 

She sighs and shakes her head, making her way outside to get the now dry clothes. The sun would be setting soon and she had spent almost an entire day tending to the ungrateful creature that was actively trying to harm himself in her home. And for what, she did not know. Something worth dying over, she guesses. She gathers the clothes and looks to the forest, wondering why men had to act against their interests so often. "Here." she says, tossing them onto the bed next to him, where he was panting. She sits his now clean boots next to the bed. She perches herself on a chair on the other side of the room, pouring herself tea and ignoring his struggle. She wouldn't be an accomplice to his foolishness. By the time he dresses himself the moon is in the sky. He immediately sweats and bleeds through the clean clothes, proving all her work useless, as he stumbles towards the door. 

"Do you have any more of the medicine for pain?" he asks, his hands resting on the door as he struggles to breathe.

"Not for men who don't head my warnings." she states, not looking over to him, but into the fire as she sipped her tea. 

"Mmph." he nods, thinking it was an entirely fair response. He throws open the door and begins his attempts to get back to the city. 

She sits with pursed lips. "He is a test of my patience, yes?" she sighs into the fire, speaking to the powers that be. She waits, finishing her tea and taking her time putting on her cloak. "You finally send a man like me my way and he is insufferable." she frowns, looking back at the fire as it sparked and told her to go fetch him. "I am not sure if this is so much of a gift as a punishment." she quirks a brow to the lively flames. 

She takes her staff with a hooked end, setting a lantern on top. He was trying to navigate unfamiliar woods on a new moon night by himself with life-threatening injuries. Although she sensed he would not die from them now, she wondered if his attempts at such a thing meant he was more skilled or more stupid than she expected upon first conversing with him. She follows the now low frequency, the sound of a tight drum thumping in her ears that seems to be the noise he emits when she focuses on him. A low and steady, deep rumble of a sound, like faraway thunder. 

It doesn't take her too long to find him, face down in mud and leaves as she expected. He'd passed out, the bandages on his head sopping with blood again, his clothes once again filthy. She gets herself in the mud with him like a pig, she thought. Hoisting him up and walking back with him as she kept his hand in hers on the staff to steady him, his feet mostly dragging but attempting to move in his confusion. 

Once again she strips him, throwing his clothes into the large iron cauldron by the fire to soak. She sets him in the large copper tub, pulling it by the fire again, stripping him of his bandages and giving him another healing soak. This time he awakes while she's working, a miserable, moan of pain as blood trickles down his face. She doesn't meet his eyes, as she figures their rolling and unfocused in his state anyway. He slowly comes to, quietening down from the extra dose of medicine she'd given him, enough to make a man twice his size float about in dream space, but he remained awake. 

She moves to wash his face, gently, picking leaves out of the hair at the top of his head, putting her ointment make on the wound. "Tell me James. Have you always been this stubborn?"

"Yes." he grunts out, eyes far away and staring into the water. 

"Why are you rushing back to a city where men want you dead?"

"How do you know it was men?" he says in a sarcastic way, his head bobbing, his eyes peeking out below his heavy brow as he sat with his arms on the edge of the tub. 

"Women don't leave the kind of energy behind that these wounds were given with." she says, wiping over his eyes, seeing the long since healed scar over his right eye. He was clearly no stranger to violence. 

"Mmph." he grunts. A typical response it seems. "So you are a witch." he states with a smug appearance.

"Yes." she agrees as he watches her face as she tends to him. "Are you?" she asks, meeting his eyes, finding the blue of them to be cold. 

"Eh," he grunts, looking away, feeling a strange familiarity within her eyes. "I have a gift. As it was called."

"So you are born into it as well." she says softly with understanding. 

The quiet trickle of water from her gentle swipes across his chest make his body want to respond, to refuse her help. But he had tried it his way, and he had admittedly failed. He didn't want to be stuck in one place, he had things to do, but perhaps the fate of meeting this woman was just that, fate. And even though he was one to fight pre-destination, to prove it wrong time and time again, he senses as he stares into the flames that whisper to him in a different sort of language of old than he's used to, that with her might be exactly where he's meant to be. At least for now.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvana gives James no answers as she has none to give. Her thoughts on why they were brought together do not bring him any closer to the answers.

After his defeat in trying to leave, James became much easier to work with. She had always found that a humbled man was easier to interact with than one who thought himself untouchable. James Delaney was clearly a man who believed himself untouchable.

After the childlike tantrum he had thrown, trying to leave in the middle of the night she had put him back to bed, freshly bandaged and clean with a nice dose of tonic to make him sleep. After putting him to bed, she finally takes the time to tend to herself, bathing in front of the fire, soaking up the energy from it and intently listening to what she had to say. Tending to her animals, something she didn't prefer to do in the dark, but taking care of James had taken all of her time and energy and she found herself unusually exhausted once she emerged from the bath. She crawls into bed with him again and soon they're back in the river together.

He doesn't notice her as she silently lowers herself onto a moss-covered boulder with her hands by her knees, leaning forward to speak to him. The fog a thick haze around him as his palms sat atop the rippling water. "Will you be more inclined to answer my questions if I ask them of you here?" she asks, perched on a rock, her feet in the water, her hair a blanket over her body, the ends brushing over her thighs as she sat naked.

He turns, his body hard and strong in his dreams still, not unmarked, she saw he had no illusions that he was not exactly who he was outside of this realm. Most she spoke to in their dreams, which she did when the work called for it, had an idealized version of themselves they presented. But not James. He was covered in paints and mud, markings beyond the permanent ones on his skin. She could tell from the thickness that his body held with muscle, even in his injured state that he seemed to be a healthy looking and entirely physical capable man. His shoulders were wide, his stomach and chest a sturdy barrel that held up bulky arms and thighs. She could see him clearly as he moved towards her, his body becoming visible to her as it rose from the water. She was relieved he did not seem the shy type. But most like them, were not. There was no shame held for their bodies or guilt for their nakedness, it was simply how they existed. She was used to men becoming children once they realized they were exposed, or that she was. It made most feel vulnerable but she saw that thought didn't lie within James. She felt the first inklings of kindred spirits between them. Someone like her, detached from society who knew that there was more to the world than what people without their gifts saw.

"What is it you want to know?" he asks, standing in knee-high water in front of her.

"Where is your magic from? It is not the same as mine."

"Africa." he says with a nod of his head.

"Did you go to Africa to find answers?" she inquires.

"No. They found me."

She gives a subtle smile at the answer. "Have you known many like us?"

"Not here." he shakes his head. "You are the first."

"I have never met a man who held our gifts."

"But you have met women?"

"My mother. My aunts." she nods.

"And what of your father?"

"I did not know him."

"Mmm." he says looking away with a thoughtful hum. "My mother." he begins. "She is the source. My father... knew it later in his life."

"Both parents who share the gift." she nods thoughtfully. "It would be nice to have such knowledge." her brow furrows as she looks away from him and down the river. "But my mother does not speak to me as yours does."

He raises his head in interest. "Hmm?" he asks with a low brow.

"That is her, yes?" she says with a nod.

He sees his mother looking into the river, her hands moving and paying no mind to either of them. "You can see her?" he demands with narrowed eyes.

"I believe she wants to be seen." she says lightly before turning her eyes back to James. "She is very strong." she pauses, a polite nod of her head. "Comes from a long line of powerful women like myself I feel."

He keeps starring into Sylvana, wondering how she felt such things. "How is it you can speak to me like this?"

"I have always done this. I have a very natural inclination to walk within the different realms."

"Does that include the dead?"

"Yes." she nods. "I have walked souls across the river myself. So you see, dreams are something that I do not have to try very hard to infiltrate."

He grunts in response, his face hard, his eyes the only thing moving and them still not giving anything anyway about his thoughts.

"What of you James? Where do your skills lie?"

"Knowing people's true intentions." he meets her eyes again, and as always finds them without fear from his tactics. "I can get into people's heads. Their thoughts. Know things by means of spirits."

"You speak to the dead as well?" her head tilts with curiosity.

"I find them easier to speak to than the living." he reflects.

A small huff of air from her, a smile as she shows the first real emotion towards him. "Now that." she nods and wags her finger his way. "Is something I do understand." she pauses, a wistful sigh emanating from her. "The living... they are far more dead than they know. And the dead... they live in ways those of us on this side cannot grasp. There's a freedom in it one can't understand until you lose your body. Perhaps with those like us, that can leave their bodies behind... perhaps that is why we are so detached in ways others can't understand."

At that moment he saw her clearly. She was good. And with no real reason but it was who she was. She didn't go about expecting anything for her actions and he found something pure about her that he hadn't found in anyone else. There was no hate within her, only empathy. It wasn't a child-like view as some held, there was nothing simple or ignorant about it. Her willingness to understand was brought on from a deep connection to the earth and everything it held, both living and dead, the seen and unseen. It was empathy born from understanding and not innocence and this was something he knew little of.

He moves closer, his eyes set with hers. He reaches out and puts his hands on her knees, she tilts her head curiously at him.

At first, he considered this might be her weakness, something he could exploit for his benefit, which was his usual way of dealing with others. But he saw a peace that she held, something he knew nothing of and he didn't want to disrupt it, he wanted to understand it. He couldn't get in her head like he could other humans. But then again, she wasn't exactly human herself. He felt things instead of heard them when he tried to read her. He didn't fully comprehend what she was and he felt a strong urge to get answers.

"What is it James?" she asks, a flash of worry across her face as his sudden intensity, feeling her skin burn as he touched her, something she wasn't used to.

The way she said his name struck him, his eyes squint as he tries to see into her but he received silence, taking in the softness that started in her dark eyes and washed across her feminine face. She didn't say his name with fear or disgust. She said it like he were a friend, not someone who hold more questions than answers for her.

"I want to understand you." he says in a breathy deep voice. "I cannot read you like I do the others."

"I can feel you trying." she replies.

"Why are you so... quiet? There are no secrets, no motives in you to unearth."

"I do not have any." she states flatly. "I have never had a place for shame or guilt in my life."

"Or fear." he adds with a quiet, reflective voice.

"Or fear." she answers back in a whisper, her voice as soft as the light that she held within her. "You could know peace if you did not fight so hard against the world outside."

"I have promised to do things," he answers, moving his chin forward. "Peace isn't something made for a man like me, Sylvana. " he side-eyes her and shakes his head subtly.

"That is a shame." she says with a pout of her lips.

"I do not know shame." he answers gruffly.

"No. You do not." she shakes her head. "We are the same in that way." she says almost as an afterthought.

"If we are so much the same, why can I not hear your thoughts, Hmmm?" he leans in closer, his eyes wrinkling at the corners with interest.

"Perhaps you are not meant to hear me. But to feel me instead. I do not hear thoughts as you do, I feel things from people."

"And what do you feel from me, Sylvana?" he asks, his voice growing darker, unsure of the expression on her face.

"Darkness." she answers, her face close to his as she studies his face. "You are detached and cold. A product of your actions." she speaks softly and without judgment. "Do not search for words within me. Search for feelings. Emotion." she whispers, running her fingertips over his eyelids. She places her forehead to his, her hands splayed on his cheeks. "Learn to listen in a new way." she says softly.

Her breath smells like flowers, her skin was so warm against his own. She was made of earth, of rich soil and sunshine. Calm followed her in the way chaos followed him.

"You are connected to the Mother. You are warm and hold no darkness within you of your own doing." he responds. "I do not connect to the life you lead. It is not mine to be a part of." he says, pulling away and out of her grasp, leaving her with dazed and blinking eyes.

"I thought you did not know fear, James." she says, her hands still outstretched.

"I don't." he grunts. "The people that I surround myself with... they deserve the consequences that can come from associating with me." he answers sternly. "You do not." his words come out with a bite to them.

"My association with you was not a choice. It was a compulsion. You were sent to me. I'm here to heal you. There is something bigger than either of our opinions as to what our fates intertwining may cause. I know just as little as you do."

"How do we get those answers?" he says with a demand in his voice she knows is pointless.

"Time." her voice is soft and accepting.

"That is something I do not have." he shows his impatience for the way their destinies were unfolding together.

"Perhaps that is the lesson." she remarks, moving to stand and move to the baren river bank.

"Where are you going?" he challenges in a rough tone.

"To rest. You should do the same."

He stares at her as she stands on the shore for a moment, for the first time unsure of how to use her against herself to manipulate her to stay and do his bidding.

"Time, James." she says loudly, turning away from him. "Answers will come when they are ready to be known. Give up your silly clawing for control. I can feel you trying to hold it over me. Give it up." she says with a nod of her chin as she begins to fade.

She leaves him with heavy fists resting in the water, his face drawn and angry, all he had known and fought for was control. He didn't have it before and his life was madness. Now he had it and... well it was still its own form of madness wasn't it? Madness from the thoughts and feelings of the unevolved around him. He sought them out himself to control them and he was beginning to understand why Sylvana was so different from him. He turns back into the river, knowing that he could not fight against time itself or the wishes of the Mother. There was no use. So rest...y es, rest it would be for tonight.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW  
> James begins to heal and get closer to leaving. He and Sylvana start getting closer, whether he likes it or not.

 

In the coming days, she finds him much more accepting of her help. He doesn't speak often, and neither does she, a comfortable silence and understanding between them that they, in fact, knew nothing. Her care and energy humbled him. He had grown so accustomed to being the one in control of those around him. With her he was not in control, he couldn't manipulate her in his usual way of doing so and this forced him to let go of his hard dying old habits. He did find that her care healed him far faster than that of the American doctor had. On the third day of his accepting his new powerlessness in accordance with her, they venture out together to test his strength.

"You are fairing far better than I had expected by this time." she remarks with polite praise.

"I have things to do. I must." he gruffs out, his breath harsh through his nostrils as his hand gripped the walking staff she'd given him.

"Soon you will be able to fight me off so you can leave." a subtle smile appears on her face, he huffs out an amused sound at her words.

"I have no quarrel with you Sylvana." he states, his thighs burning from use.

"That is a relief. I would not want you as my enemy."

"You are smarter than your peasant appearance would lead one to believe." he replies in a guarded compliment.

Her eyes rise to see his face with its hardened expression once again, never giving up any softness to her. She had grown used to such things and his backhanded compliments. "Oh why thank you, James." she says with a subdued smirk.

"Why do you not wear boots?" he asks outright, the clear tone of judgment in his voice clear.

She looks down at her dirty feet, walking along the beaten path. "Do you see deer in boots?" she asks flatly.

His brow furrows and he turns his face towards her, an unamused glance at her childish retort.

"Do you see the bear in shoes?"

"No." he says forcefully, looking away and taking her hint.

"I do not require them. Same as them. Perhaps you could connect more if you went without."

"But I do." he says with a nod of his chin. "I find privacy in the forest to do my work." his breathing is hard as they move back towards her home. "I prefer to do it in the same natural form as you."

"Yet another thing we have in common." she says in her usual gentle tone, seeming unperturbed by his crassness.

\-----

As she had almost every night, she has him in her large copper tub, warm and being doting over by the fire. He finds these baths particularly soothing for his body and tonights even more so after the exertion he had put forth. But the pain only meant he was closer to leaving, to being healed on a deeper level with her assistance to be able to carry out his foolish work.

She places a warm cloth over his face, he feels her hands on him, his skin warm and tingling under her gifted touch, his muscles relishing in what energy she brought to them. Perhaps it was the exercise, but he finds himself too tired to care about keeping up appearances as she whispers words he doesn't understand with pouted lips, her oils and herbs sticking to his skin that was once again alive with color. She removes the cloth, steam coming off his skin as his profile is silhouetted by the fire. She does her usual channeling, asking for the powers that be to heal and protect, bring life to his body where it had tried to leave. She works his muscles with her fingers since he had exerted them more than usual, she knew it would help them recover. She's seated on her knees behind his head, her hands running down his chest, up to his shoulders, her thumbs rubbing into the thick muscles at the back of his head. He lets go of a groan that catches her off guard. He had only emitted sounds of pain since she'd known him, never pleasure. The heavy breaths and moans that follow as her fingers glide over his skin are a sure sign he is nearly ready to leave her.

Even though they were not a sign of weakness, she was still surprised he would show signs of pleasure to her. He seemed so guarded that if she hadn't seen him naked she would've wondered if he had his masculine pieces intact to use them with the deadened way he composed himself towards her. He was a very masculine man in the way he carried himself, but it did not read as sexual to her in the way she usually recognized. He used all the darker parts of the male psyche, the control, the power they liked to hold over things. So as she helped him from the tub, barely needing her assistance after the work she'd done, when she finds his body responding in ways to her touch that it hadn't before, she knows it's a sure sign his body is ready to get back to functioning normally.

It was like he could feel his blood running hot through his veins as he moved his body on his own. He was as taken aback by his cock's response to her as she was, but she did not show it. She remained ever vigilant, drying him off without batting a lash as he hung half hard near her face, showing it no more attention than she ever had. He found her reaction to be another thing about her that was strangely comforting. She truly was without the built-in shame for such things, it was like a test that he didn't know he was putting her through. Seeing if she was really as indifferent to the human body as she claimed to be. Her response supported her claim.

She props him up, giving him a glass of brandy and a chunk of bread. "I believe you've earned this." she says with praise, pulling a blanket up to his chest.

"Mmmph." he says with an, enthusiastic for him, nod.

"I do not believe you will require anything to sleep tonight. You're doing very well." she gives him a nod as she moves to empty the tub, walking in and out of the house, filling it back up for herself. He watches her with dark eyes, feeling more like himself again with the burn of brandy on his lips.

"Do you have more?" he questions.

She turns and gives him a judgemental glance but pulls out a small bottle and hands it to him anyway. "Would you like a book or something while I ready myself for bed?" she asks, her fingers moving to unravel the braids in her hair.

"No." he gruffs out, taking a large swig.

"If you could not drink all of that I would appreciate it." she remarks with tight lips as she turns and pours the bubbling cauldron of her own special mixture of enchanted water in the tub to warm it.

He holds the bottle by him in the bed, a large bite of the half loaf of bread she'd given him in his other hand. He watches her undress, his nose twitching in consideration of her body. He hadn't seen her ready herself for bed before. He had been too in pain or put to sleep by this point in the evening usually. She sits up, brushing through her hair. Her eyes are closed, a content look on her face with gentle hums emitted from time to time. After putting her mane on top of her head, she sinks further in, covering her to her delicate collarbones. Steam rises around her, her head back, lips parted as she lets out a soft sigh. She soaks for awhile, her lips moving but he cannot hear the words she speaks. She moves after the vapor settles, a sponge in hand and scrubbing away at her body as he gets glances of her without the obscured view he usually has through her veil of hair. She looked strong and healthy, unlike the women in the city he'd seen. Although most had been whores as of late. Her skin was tanned and pink with blood under the surface, no circles underneath her eyes, no blemishes from back alley deeds on her face or any other parts of her body that were being shown to him. She was strong, sturdy and had what he had heard referred to first by his father when he was young as a body made for rearing children. Curved hips and teardrop shaped breasts glistened with oil as she rubbed herself down with it in the light of the dying fire after her bath. The smell carried throughout the entire room, tickling his nostrils. Something distinctly feminine about it, he wondered if what she was using was charmed in some way as his body began to react to the sights and smells he was being an audience to.

With her hair still piled up in a thick braid, pieces falling and wet still across her face and shoulders she walks towards him entirely bare and he finds himself failing at the test she'd passed earlier.

"Are you finished?" she asks, taking the bottle from his hand, the bread long since gone now.

"Mmph." he grunts, glancing into her eyes to avoid her body.

She takes a drink herself before putting it away and feeding the fire one last time. "I'm ready for bed, do you need anything before I join you?" her usual polite tone seeming far sweeter than it had when she was clothed.

"No." he answers quickly. In a display of appreciativeness, he pulls back the covers next to him and she thanks him with a soft smile.

She sits up, making no move to cover herself, now facing him on her knees. "You don't have to worry about offending me." she states with a single nod. Her eyes moving to where he was sitting still twitching underneath the blanket. "It simply means you're healing. Your body is wanting to go about its usual functioning."

"Yes. I know." he says defensively.

"It also means that you should clear those pathways. Your body is saying it's been too long." She doesn't meet his eyes since his tone was so curt with her. "I could feel it when you were in the bath. I would suggest you take care of it yourself, or I can help you with it." she shifts her eyes back up to his, guarded again as he can only feel her calm and even energy being emitted, still not a mumble of her thoughts as he tried to see her motives.

He doesn't answer her, only continues to stare into her eyes.

She emits a sigh. "It's all part of healing. And I am here to fulfill all roles that that includes. A man needs to ejaculate at regular intervals. It keeps your body healthy." she states calmly.

"I know that." his tone still the same.

"And if you would like to take care of it yourself I will gladly go to bed, but if not I'd like to know so I could move forward." she says in a more commanding tone.

"Why would you offer to do it?" his chin raises, his eyes narrowing at her in an accusing way.

"Because I could feel you watching me and I know your body is reacting to mine, so I could do it quickly and also impart good energy into you at the same time."

He nods in understanding, his eyes shifting about the room before returning to look at the now clear lump in the blankets. "Whatever helps heal me faster." he states.

She nods and goes to oil up her hands, rubbing her palms together and breathing onto them before taking down his covers. As soon as she touched him she knew his body was calling out for something feminine. As she wrapped her slick hands around him, two in tandem up and down his length, she could see flashes of images from him. Women bent over in brothels in the dark, everything quick and dirty and hidden. Only mere sustenance performed and nothing involving any feeling. It'd been so long since any emotion had been tied to the deed for him. She now understood his stagnant feelings when it came to his sexual energy.

"You can let go James." she says softly, seeing him bite his lip, his brow low and furrowed as he watched her hands encase the entirety of him. Decades it had been since someone had said his name while touching him in such a way. It stirred something in him he did not care for. "Breathe for me." her voice is so delicate as it asks things of him. His eyelids flutter as he sees her breasts being knocked together as her two hands pump him steadily.

He lets out a groan as he exhales.

"That's a good man, James." she says, leaning forward and holding his attention. She could feel him pulsing in her palm, his balls tight and his stomach muscles shifting under his marked and tanned skin.

When she speaks it's like something washes over him, he knows it's her magic but he can't recall any fuck ever feeling as good as her hands did at that moment. She was warm and slick with the hint of friction he needed, feeling welcomed and wanted by her skillful hands. To have all this energy shifting, his body on edge, and with no money exchanged for a transaction, it was all a bit overwhelming in his weakened state. When she says his name he groans again, his lip hanging loose as the plush parts separate and snarl.

She feels him holding back, as he did with all things. "No need for hesitation. Let it wash over you, James." she says as she straddles his legs, hands still steady on him, seeing her sitting astride him makes his knees twitch, her magic calling out to his, making his need for her body grow. "Touch me James." she whispers, her hands knocking her breasts as she leans forward and he reaches out to cup them, soft, full handfuls that make him finally give over to her. The more he touched her, the more hungry he became. His hands run up to her neck, back down to her sternum, feeling the pulse of her heart beneath his hand, something intimate he moved away from as his own wanted to sync with her calmness. With two handfuls of her, his grip tigthens, with a heave of his chest he knows he;s about to give over to her command. But he can't seem to find it within himself to mind in the moment. His vision goes white and fuzzy, hands kneading on her like a kitten, grip contracting as he finally lets her take control, feeling that surrender for the briefest of moments as he released with a loud, pained, drawn-out groan.

He had been so desperately in need of some tender care. His body drank up what she put forth greedily. She was left being exhausted and sad for him. He had said he hadn't known peace and though she noticed he did lean towards being dramatic, she recognized within him that at least in regard to that, he was not overacting.

A quick clean up of her hands them himself, looking at himself twitch, skin shining from her oils. She even wipes the sweat from his forehead, a gentleness he moves away from. The action only makes her more sorry for the void he had created within himself.

"You were in dire need of that," she states plainly. "You'll start feeling much better now. Come morning you'll be level again." she said in almost cheery sort of way.

"Mmph." she receives in response.

Snuffing out the candles, she lets the fire be the only light as she gets into bed next to him, he grunts and groans, moving himself back to level.

"I won't be visiting you in your sleep tonight. I'll keep to myself. We need our rest."

"Perhaps I'll visit you in yours sometime." he says with a deep, tired voice.

"Perhaps." she gives a sly smile he cannot see. "Goodnight James." she says sweetly, letting out a yawn.

"Goodnight. Sylvana." he says with a pause, wondering when the last time was he had wished someone a good night in such a way. Lying in bed with her, now satiated and full of light she'd poured into him, he felt offbeat. He felt, he couldn't be sure as he wasn't sure he had ever known such a feeling, but one could almost say he felt calm and at peace as he fell asleep next to her, seeing her skin glowing and humming in the dark with energy that his own was growing fond of.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James leaves Sylvana's home. He finds city life lacking something, and visits her in her dreams with the purpose to get answers as to what is bothering him and how to fix it.  
> NSFW.

He's surprised when she hands him a vial of her pain medicine as they stand outside her home on a brisk morning. His hand wrapped around a walking stick of hers, polished and smooth, looking like something you could buy out of the shops to ease his recovery in healing.

"Until you can get to a doctor. This will hold you over." she says, closing her hands over his one as she wraps his fingers around the small bottle.

"And what if I find I prefer your methods over there's?" he says with an almost friendly lilt to his voice.

"There is nothing stopping you from seeing me again. Prieten will guide you back until you no longer need her. She will return to me after."

"Do you want to see me again Sylvana?" he asks with a mischievous look to his face. Once she'd seen more in the past day or so, something almost boyish peeking through his hardened exterior with her.

"Does it matter if I do? You've informed me many times James Delaney does what he wants."

"Mmm." a quickly passing smile on his face as she steps away, allowing him to mount the horse.

"You do not have to come back here to see me anyway. If you need more we can make an arrangement."

"And I do know when you sleep." he says with a confident nod of his head.

"You do." she nods in return. "Be well. Don't make my work all for naught." she tells as he knocks his legs against the large white horse's sides.

"I promise you nothing." he says haughtily. "Til we meet again, Sylvana." he replies, not looking back at her as he trots away.

\-----

The gentle thump of his energy was a background noise she had grown accustomed to. Without it the sounds and melodies of the forest lacked a certain bass that she had grown to like. Her life returns to normal, days spent hunting and gathering, mending and making. A stray villager or two come for her wares, her favorite of them a small girl who was always friendly and brought her flowers and seeds in exchange for the colorfully dyed shawls she loved so much.

She sits and reads to the animals, the wilder and wandering of them hearing her and joining in the warm after sun that broke through the canopy of thick foliage. The family of deer that she gave extra chicken feed to from her hands, their wet noses ruffling against her skin and hair as they thanked her. The largest of her wild friends being a bear named Urs made a rare appearance. As a cub, he was trapped and maimed and had escaped. She helped nurse him back to health and when he was in her part of the words he would he drop by. She'd give him dried beef or berries, he was always grateful for the food and tenderness. He was left marked with a missing ear and scars across his face from his injuries in his youth, he was a rough looking animal but he was gentle with her. She tells him about James. How he had a scar over his eye similar to him, and how he was a big burly beast just the same, although she found Urs to be much sweeter than James. Urs reminds her to always be cautious of men. They had done this to him and would to her if given the chance.

James was back in the rolling fog and stench of London, back at his slowly decaying home with an upset Brace and feather ruffled Lorna at his prolonged absence. Word of his return was making its way slowly across the stinking city. No one could be for certain if it was really him back from the dead or if he was, in fact, a ghost. Before he had been taken deep into the woods, some were uncertain if he was a specter even then and now the rumors followed him like vengeful, guilt seeking spirts. This idle chatter bought him some time as he made his way through the underbelly of the city, back among the shallow commoners who he could read and control. With the growing attention on him as he lurks about the city, fulfilling the steps to keep his foolish promises he feels the lying eyes of the dead and living watching him everywhere he went. He started to feel that familiar strain, that ache deep in his tense muscles from the interactions with these disposable people. Their draining, detrimental sensations and thoughts constantly berating him. The dead and living of the city reach out and pluck away at his calm outwardly composure. The inner workings of his mind threatening to show through his dark eyes as the weight of the crowded city bears down upon him. The forest and river, and thus Sylvana had been so quiet and serene he had become spoiled with the sanctuary that it had given him.

As he stumbled into his home in the late night, sitting on his couch he felt an unfamiliar pang in his stomach. Looking down at it with a displeased expression his chin pressed into his neck as one brow shoots upward in a damning stare. Since when did his stomach growl? He wasn't sure he felt hungry, but perhaps the brandy was keeping it at bay like it usually did. He hears a hiss from the fire that catches his attention. He grunts a vibration of acknowledgment, turning his head towards it as he tugs off his boots, tossing them out of sight and not caring about the clatter he made in the dark and sleeping house. It was his home after all.

'Sssssssssss. Aaaaaaaa." the fire whispers as his eyes bore into the dancing flame.

He'd finished the last of Sylvana's medicine long ago and found the American doctors to be lacking in a certain nourishment. He felt worse after it wore off, not better as he did with hers. Perhaps the noise from his stomach was from needing something, but it wasn't about sustenance. His mind had become far too busy since leaving the shelter of Sylvana's home. He had taken for granted in his hurried and pain filled state, the solitude and peace that seemed to only exist there. With the sort of company he kept, they were all full of regret and secrets. Their problems didn't all involve him but that didn't stop them from coming at him heavy and distinct, even his black leather gloves and layers of clothing not keeping him from being brushed up against uncomfortably by their thoughts. Even in his own home, he heard the whispers and moans of those others couldn't see. His mother flashing before his eyes in torment every time he would walk by her room or stare out onto that haunted foreshore, reminding him of the unfair treatment she'd gone through.

He realizes he was missing that piece of tranquillity that he'd experienced for the first time in years while with Sylvana. He didn't need it to survive, but it certainly gave him something that he didn't find elsewhere. He strips down and settles in front of the fire, fingertips in tiny bowls of powder, his tongue clicking and lips popping at the words of old he recites. He delves his hand into a bowl of over ripened fruit, fingers covered in red juices before bring them to his lips to take a bite.

\-----

Sylvana readied herself for bed, steam radiating from her after a soothing soak as she rubbed oils into her skin in front of the fire. It was rather noisy tonight. The pit was popping and spitting at her, flames trying to lick up the mantle, so she feeds it more wood to satiate it and calm it down.

"Speak if you wish for me to know." she calls out in a more demanding tone, turning her body towards the flames as it once again spits an ember out onto the rug that she stomps out with her stocking covered foot. "All this fuss will tell me nothing." she states with upturned palms, arms out in exasperation.

"Sleep." it whispers.

She narrows her eyes at the shifting colors. "I was trying to sleep." she mumbles to herself, keeping her eyes on the source of the odd choice of words from the cryptic spirits.

"He's here." it whispers as she pulls the covers over her shoulders.

"Who?" she ponders, looking to check the door's locks were in place, and they were.

"The gift bestower." it hisses, a loud pop as a log splits.

She lays back and shuts her eyes. If she were in trouble, she would be warned. She wouldn't be dealing with this vague nature of words. She hears footsteps in the room, shuffled and uneven but she knows there is no human there. She doesn't feel afraid as she feels breath across her face, she had been visited by phantoms before and none had ever harmed her.

He's already waiting as she comes to, her naked body in the dark, rich, fertile soil of her garden. Her mind was full of everything his lacked. It was in the woods just the same, but a breeze blew by, leaves rustled and birds sang. A warm summer sun beamed down and you could feel the life blooming around you. Both flora and fauna flourished, the river a noisy backdrop, the summer storms gifts ran down the valley's and met the fast-moving water. Everything was lush and green, no fog, no washed out colors, everything bright and alive. He felt out of place in her head.

"You've had a long day too, hmmm?" he asks, sitting on a stump in her garden with one leg crossed, his ankle over his thigh with his elbows resting on top.

She rises from the flower bed, petals and leaves in her hair, looking like a fertility goddess that would've been openly worshiped by the first peoples to make these hills their home. Her skin was glowing and brown, her hair full and long, down and messy over her torso, covering strong thighs and her thatch of even darker hair between her thighs. When she had gasped and awoken into her dreams, he could hear her before he saw her. She sounded like a constant far away bell ringing. A light and airy sound, something soft and sweet that brought a feeling of nostalgia to him as it reverberated around his skull.

"Yes." she doesn't force the word out, it's an exhale, an afterthought as it leaves her pinked lips. "The days are growing shorter. There is much to be done before winter." she says, running her palms over the flowers that resided alongside her.

"Seasons don't mean as much in the city." he gruffs out, his head tilted as he watches her eyes focus and her body language relax, fully immersing herself.

"I don't like the city." she says, finally raising her head to look at him, resting at the end of the bed of flowers.

"You prefer this?" he asks, his body moving slowly and without any hitch in his movements as he got to his knees on the ground. His voice was intense and sharp but not angry, a hint of tiredness in it. "In the dirt?" he further inquires, crawling towards her on his hands and knees.

She sweeps her legs to the side, allowing him to come closer. He stops and stares into her, she feels him trying to move around her head again. He moves parallel to her and breathes heavily like an animal, his eyes brighter than she recalled. His skin already marked with fresh soil and blades of grass. "I do." she nods subtly. "You prefer it among the stone and the smog." she says, not making it a question.

"I used to," he says with narrowed eyes. "I missed where I came from during my time in Africa." he pauses, lowering himself and sitting on his heels, his hands pressed into the earth, shoulders wide and strong, his face certain and close to hers. "But in my time away..." he pauses, eyes narrowing as if accusing her of something. "From you. Sylvana." he whispers, getting her attention. "I have found that I have been preferring the dirt myself."

"It is where we come from. And where we go." she says, seeing the worms wriggling and alive in her hands as she digs in the dark, loose earth. "Full of life and death with no discernible line in between. It's perfect." she speaks in a sigh.

"Mmm." he responds, feeling something stir inside him as she spoke, feeling the ground soften underneath him. "Do you find it as quiet here as I do?"

She flutters her lids, eyes moving back to his. "Quiet? The forest is teeming with life."

"But I do not hear the racket I hear in the city now. Even in my own dreams. In my own house I hear the city and its people calling out. Alive and dead. Day and night." his eyes glaze, his mouth hanging open, his brow low and thoughtful.

"You said you were a man who didn't know peace." she gives his words back to him.

"But I have found it." he says with an upturning of his voice, a deep hum of amusement vibrating in his chest. "And it is when I am with you." he says, dipping his head in emphasis.

You are not silent to me." she speaks softly, reaching out and placing her hands to his face, her brow low in thought. “You sound like a deep, somber drum beat. Like a heartbeat... or thunder in the distance.” She whispers, her face softens as she speaks, analyzing his face.

“Can you feel me then? Like a heartbeat? Like a drum? Like thunder?”

“Like the stampede of hooves against the earth as it grows closer. You feel in inside before you feel it against your skin.”

He hums as she rises up to her knees, her eyes looking through him. “I have been called a beast before.”

“I would believe it. Your darkness likes to behave as an animal. Doesn’t it?”

“Mmmm.” He hums and gives her a single nod.

“And you hear only silence from me?”

“I hear you chiming like a little bell, Sylvana. Your melody carried by a summers breeze to my ears.”

She blinks her eyes rapidly, caught off guard by the charisma she felt as he spoke to her in such a way. “But what do you feel? I can feel your pulse through my skin upon the earth.” He voice is a gentle exhale, looking away to place her hand on the ground and to his chest. “One in the same.” She moves back to meet his intimate gaze.

He shifts his eyes across her face, not half hidden by a heavy brow, his face more indifferent than she’d seen it. “I feel a breeze across my skin. I feel the peace of the forest the old life, the simple existence. There is no babbling here in the dirt like in the river.”

“Is it loud in the city James?” She asks innocently.

“Deafening.” He simply states.

“Does it hurt you?” She questions with a flash of concern in her eyes.

“No.” He answers swiftly. Moving and putting his hand over hers on his chest. “How do you make it all fade away Sylvana? How have I never known this solitude with someone? Why you?”

“The spirits sent you to me. Perhaps they knew you needed it.”

“Not it.” He gruffs out, his other hand taking hold firmly on her arm. “You.”

Her lids flutter as her lips part, taking in the intensity on his face.

“I am not a man who has questions. I am a man who has answers. Ever since our paths crossed I have had more questions now than I have since before my madness took me over.”

“But you are a man. You do not hold all the answers.”

“And you are a woman.” He states sternly. “A woman whose scent and voice haunt me even in the day. My body tells me to seek you out Sylvana. My body needs nothing but brandy and a heartbeat. Why does it want you?”

“You are a man who craves respite. You do not want to admit you like the peace I bring. So your body is telling you what your mind is too stubborn to admit.”

“This peace.” He mutters, leaning in closer, his nose grazing hers as he studies the curiosity for him in her eyes. “Resides within you Sylvana. It is not in the woods. I looked there.” He shakes his head, eyes locked into hers, sharing a breath. “You are the source.”

“I am one with the mother. There is peace in that.” She replies simply.

“Why is it that I now crave this solitude like a fiend?” He speaks slow and deliberately. Almost thinking out loud to her now. “If it is inside you Sylvana...” he pauses, a rumble of thunder in the distance, warm raindrops starting to fall against their skin. “Then I want to be inside you.”

“You are in my head.” She admits, shaking it slightly, he tilts his head so his nose no longer bumps into hers as she does so. “James I’ve let you into my mind. No other man has been here.” She confesses.

“And what of your body?” Another rumble of thunder, rain now dampening their hair, clouds moving to cover the sun as he brings forth a summer storm into her dreams. His voice is deep and dark like the quickly greying sky above them.

“James.” She says almost defensively.

“Do not play coy. We do not heed the same rules as they do. You are not offended by my question.” He responds in a demanding tone.

The rain falls faster, the soft dirt around them now turning to mud, rivulets of rain fall from the clumped strands of his hair down his ruggedly handsome face. She looks away from his eyes. Seeing the trails of water over the scar around it, sloping down his strong nose and gathering in the hair around his mouth and chin.

“They have. But not for any purpose of peace.” She answers with a tilt of her head, returning her eyes to his. “No man has seen me as you do. Understood me, experienced me this way.” Her eyes would look afraid if he did not know her better. A cautious dark interest builds within her, her eyes now black and dilated with a thirst for what he was proposing.

“Then this is the gift, hmm? You bring me peace, I can show you what it’s like to be truly seen by another.” He suggests, the sun fading from the sky. “I will find that peace within you and I will leave you with new darkness inside you. You do not have the darkness, the so-called evil within you as I do.” His eyes are as dominating as she’s ever seen them. “I can show you something new just as you can show me.”

“Will you fulfill my morbid curiosity James?” She asks, feeling her legs sinking into the mud beneath her.

“More than you could ever imagine.” He hisses. “Pour your light into this dark void Sylvana and I will do the same for you.”

She had always been a friend to the dark, but it was always something separate from herself. It did not live within her, it merely existed along beside her. Now she had a chance to know it intimately and it had been craving her light.

“Do not drown me past the point of resuscitation James.” She requests of him.

“Do not extinguish the demons you find within Sylvana.” He responds as a crack of lightning hits the ground, their lips finding the others in a rush of crackling thick electric air.

The flimsy continuity of the dreamscape shifts. She is engulfed in darkness, their bodies hitting into the thick mud, feeling his skin against hers despite the lack of sight to know he was there. They sink into the ground together, farther and farther down past the bodies long forgotten and the bedrock of the earth. A sweeping heat licks her skin, feeling him move inside her, nails and grasping hands from both as a feral nature takes over, engulfing them both in their own singular experiences.

He feels the blinding light of the bolt, it sending them both away from the ground and into a comforting nothingness. There is no barrier any longer between them, he feels her engulf him, her light warm and welcoming, feelings of contentment he hadn’t known since he was an ignorant child come to the surface. He can hear her moans, feel her held fast against him. His groans are deep, drawn out and brimming with pure pleasure.

She was still suspended in darkness, flames at her skin as her noises were high and fast, building and releasing. A rumble of thunder, a shift of the insides of the earth around them grows in her mind as teeth meet skin, sensations now the only thing left to remind her of the act they were in the heart of.

He rises to his peak and she bottoms out against the molten center of the earth as their energies collapse and collide against one another. When they both come down, they find themselves in her bed in her home, dry and under covers. Only their breathing as he lay on top of her can be heard over the crickets outside and the roar of the fire inside.

They pant, forehead to forehead as the whites of their eyes show in the wild abandon they’ve just experienced. Neither speak, both just as surprised as the other as what just transpired.

They lay together in that familiar setting in an unfamiliar way. She didn’t feel satisfied, she felt a hunger within her, something different, something new, something dark.

He felt exhausted of all energy as if he couldn’t have given any more if he tried. He collapses on top of her, feeling a heavy weight in his chest and finding when he opened his eyes again, that he was back in his room alone. He felt profound, satisfied tiredness he hadn’t since he was a much younger man. He rises and drags himself to his bed where he collapses into a bright warm sleep that consumes him.

She lay there as he fades, not sensing any trouble as she’s left alone in her dream. But she wasn’t alone without him any longer. She had that residual touch inside her, the thunder now within her instead of in the sky.

She wakes, body covered in sweat with a clear and distinct throb in her chest and between her legs. She sits up, looking around the room as if he might be there. She pulls the covers off, sitting up and finding her inner thighs slick. She moves on wobbly legs to get a drink of wine and eat a hunk of bread, the hunger still residing.

“Was that the gift?” She questions the enthusiastically shifting fire as she rests with a curtain of hair around her perspiring face, a hunched back still pulsing with her troublesome breathing.

“No.” It states as she gives it a dramatic and confused expression.

She sighs and rubs her face, groaning as she gets back into bed, with heavy limbs, figuring the best way to rid herself of this throb was to address it directly. Her hand wanders between her thighs, the other wrapped around the cleansing amulet on her necklace as she tries to piece together the clear moments of her dream with the man who just dragged her to hell and back again.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James and Sylvana begin a strange back and forth exchanging of powers as they find that the mixture of the two of them together, is better than they are alone. James visits her through the flames first, then drags her back down into them with him once again.  
> NSFW

Sylvana makes her way through her daily tasks as is routine but clouded with the remnants of the dream with James following her. She spent her days, dawn until night gathering and hunting, curing and canning for the winter from her garden. She soaks in her tub at night with her herbs, taking away the tension from her muscles from work, her hair flowing over the side onto the blankets on the old wooden floorboards that puffed out ancient dirt as she shifted the weight of the tub as she sank into the warm water.

Feeling more herself while in a bath of her own grown concoctions she feels the stain of James and his energy tingle up her spine. She turns her head lazily to the fire.

"Again James?" she questions with a cheeky smile, her skin dotted with droplets that shined with the sparking flames she could sense him in. "Never took you for a man with such appetites." she grins, letting her head fall back over the edge of the tub, taking a deep breath and watching the steam rise. The fire hisses and pops and she lets out a low chuckle to herself.

As he sat in front of the fire, skin covered in the dried remanents of the foreshore, the soot from the fire and his powders that let him reach out to the woman who had given him a piece of her to carry around with him. He could see her in her home, his eyes shut lightly, pupils rolling behind the hooded lids as he whispered. His fingers kissed the flames, reaching out for her, touching her slick skin that he could taste in his mouth as the juices from the fruit and brandy dribbled down his full lips.

"Sylvana." he calls out, a tease and a taunt, deep and raspy calling to her through space and time. As it reached her ears she smiled, and he could hear her sounds of amusement, feel that darkness that still held on, like a tinge from an explosion on your skin. And that had been what their time together had been, a violent paroxysm that had shifted his mind into something less chaotic. It'd allowed him in their prolonged time apart to outsmart East India time and time again and keep those most important to the completion of his foolish deeds alive. She was becoming something he had a use for, and the space between them was becoming more of an inconvenience than he wanted to admit to himself.

"James," she says his name in the hoarse whisper in the way he calls hers with a subtle smile on her face. "What have you come here for?" she demands, her eyes looking down at her own body as she rises from the water, the streams flowing down her curves, dripping off her pointed parts as she gathers her waist length hair and piles it on top of her head. Holding it up with one hand, the other lax at her side while she moves leisurely, always keeping her body within view of the flames.

"You know what." he grunts and she feels a cold breeze brush against her backside.

A playful hum as she stands facing the fire, slowly rubbing in her oils to her skin. "Will you be only making these appearances in this way? Can you not come and pay me a visit in your human flesh?" she asks, feeling the distinct animalistic energy that paced around her personal space.

A pleased hum he emits at her keen senses as he now knows she can sense he's visiting as something other than himself, and still, she doesn't cower from it. Her hands held out as she feels fur brush against her palms, a snort of air against her thighs.

"Soon." he says as she feels his eyes watching her, but can't see them herself.

"As much as I am fond of your cheekiness to invade my home unannounced, I would prefer if you would either visit me in human form or wait until you can haunt me proper in the flesh."

The fire builds, a gust of wind with a force behind it pushing her to the bed.

"James. I am not afraid of you. There's no need for such antics." she tuts, finishing the secure twist in her braided hair. She feels his familar beast within the santicity of her space. It's feet pacing on her floor, she watches the floorboards creak and settle with the invisible weight of the body moving towards her. He could feel her usual easy-going energy, but underneath lie something new. The darkness in her didn't make her more chaotic to him, didn't make hhim covet her any less in her calm nature. If anything, having something thumping like a beacon inside her that he could directly relate to made him want her more. He wondered if this new more taunting attitude he could see on her face, set in a scolding expression for him, was from what he'd left behind.

He reaches into the flames, his skin unblemished by them as they smoke away the powers on his skin, reaching farther into her space and the fireplace, the rest of the house a dark and uninteresting backdrop compared what only he could see in the flames. He pushes her back flat against the bed, the pressure from two paws with puncturing claws now clear as her lips purse together at his chosen means of interaction. She feels the bed shift from his weight, knowing he was crawling on top of her but she doesn't stop him, only reaches out to feel him. In response he seizes her wrists, pinning them to the bed, leaving her body stretched and bare beneath him, seeing the curve of her tanned skin against the dark furs she lay on.

"James." her voice stronger, sounding as if she were the one speaking into his ear with throaty confidence from her naturally deeper voice. "I am not one to be handled in such a way." she warns with her signature calmness to her voice. She feels the curved edges of nails raking down her ribs to her hips. "Let my hands go or I will push you out." her voice is even and serious. She hears a dark groan of a laugh as he does not obey, flipping her onto her stomach. "James." her voice louder, a bite of hot air against his skin now as she growls under his weight. "There will be no more warnings. You will get a taste of my defensive powers if you do not cease this roughness." She feels his grip tighten, her hands grower a darker shade of red as he tests her. The thought of feeling her power excited him. He was willing to forgo a brief satisfaction that he could find in the flesh to feel a thrill from magic not his own. "If you wish to make amends. You do so in the physical realm. You come to me. But tonight this little rendezvous is over." she states curtly. He feels a strange tingling in his hands. His eyes squeeze shut as he feels what seems to be a tight grip on his wrists, flames wrapping around his forearms and holding them tightly. "You were warned James." she whispers, turning over and walking towards the fire in a powerful stance as he's held in her grips. "A man like you needs to be told no from time to time." she sneers, kneeling in front of the fire. He could see her as if she were right in front of him, her eyes large and dark, her teeth white and peaking from her pinked and smirking lips. He feels the warmth from her skin as she comes through the flames, a brief kiss to his berry-stained lips before pulling back quickly, a flash of skin and hair as she spins to her knees, grabbing a handful of powder of her own. "Goodbye James." she says with a suspicious smile before throwing the concoction into the fire, her side roaring with licking colorful flames and his extinguishing, a plume of smoke and soot, scalding hot overtake him and knock him onto his back. Left to blink rapidly, the embers still hissing, smoke rising from the spotty orange glow, he sits up on his elbows, staring into the stone back of the fireplace.

He smiles, a rare sight on a Delaney's face. But no one had forced him out in so long. Hardly anyone even dares say no to him, let alone lay their hands on him and reject him. Her dismissal of him didn't feel like a minor inconvenience like the others he'd experienced since returning to London had. This only intrigued him more. There was no annoyance in his mind for it, he only felt her lingering presence, his lips still burning hot as the smell of flowers drifted around him. He grunts and stands, looking down at the soot-covered floor that Brace would surely be complaining about come morning. He hums in amusement at the cheeky handprints left on his upper thighs, exposed from the long shirt he'd been wearing sitting on hips as he'd sat cross-legged in front of the fire. Two scorched spots on his thighs left to remind him that she was no normal woman to be messed with. He wipes at his lips, still tingling to find them also covered in the same soot as a low groan grows in his chest, this woman was proving to be more entertaining than he'd given her credit for. He didn't even recall the last time he'd had fun in such a way.

 

\--------  
Although there was much to occupy his time, on the rare moments of downtime he found himself feeling the burn still on his skin from Sylvana. So on the day he found himself traveling far out into the wilderness, he knew he could travel the rest of the way to see her, as he could hear her in the distance still, that little bell chime like she was calling him to a meal. And for him, it most certainly felt that way.

He gives orders to Atticus as he saunters through the now abandoned asylum, the inhabitants of which only he could see where screaming at him, but in his practice he only saw his mother. She wasn't who he was after this afternoon, he was after another woman who called out to him.

“Fix this.” He grunts out, his finger pointing to the ceiling as he turns, cane in hand with his coat splaying out behind him in his haste.

“Where are you goin?” Atticus calls out. “You won’t get far in this weather.” He calls out obviously.

“I have someone to see.” James answers in his deep and always to the point tone.

Atticus sighs loudly and rolls his eyes. James hears him mumbling to himself as he leaves.

She felt the electricity in the air since the afternoon. The clouds had become overcast, her chickens acting skittish and keeping inside, the leaves upturned on the trees as she walked by the river, a sure sign of rain to come. She kept close to her homestead, feeling a sense of anticipation in her bones.

She sits on the stump in her garden, feeling a vague sense of familiarity with James as she could imagine them as they were in her dream, tethered together in the soil that her feet currently were sinking into. The moon is high, peering over the trees which were still rustling with their defiance for the winds that were picking up. The light that cast down shifts and transforms across the last of the flowers left in their beds that sat in front of Sylvana. The shadows move and disappear as the clouds progress hurriedly across the sky, making the moonlight a tease. The frogs were singing loudly, calling out for their sadness at the approaching winter. Sylvana's fondness for their calming sounds in the summer nights was distracted by the blowing wind across her skin. A cold lilt to it, something that made her skin prickle and her hairs stand at attention. Then there it was. That thud that she knew meant James was in some way close to her. She stands, the wind whipping her dressing gown across her body, it's dark green hue tinted a stormy blue by the cool tones of the moon. The rustle of wind in her ears, batting against them freely as her hair was thrown about as an afterthought to what it brought to her ears. It was hard to distinguish the rhythmic thumping of James' heart, if that was in fact what it was. She had her suspicions it could be from his tribal awakening in Africa instead, but she might never know for sure.

She listens, moving slowly through the garden to the gate, latching it securely behind her as the wind would surely knock it open during the night otherwise. She stands in her doorway, back against the frame of the stone and earth home as the droplets of rain finally start to fall after threatening to all day. A rumble of thunder, reminding her of James vibrates through her. The bolt of lightning lighting up the woods for the briefest of moments, but she sees nothing and no one. She turns back into her home, eyes to the dying fire as she shuts her door, creating her safe barrier once again.

He's bringing the storm to her, he muses. The rain long since soaked past his long, dark coat. The white hair of his horse is shining, the muscles moving steadfastly with its hooves in the quickly darkening and softening dirt as he pushes through the rain and wind to close the last of the space left between him and Sylvana.

His leather boots were heavy from the soft ground to the stone steps of her home. His leather gloves slick against the handle as they squeak with his grip to the old wrought iron hardware.

She stands in front of the fire, a dark silhouette framed in the center of the room like a vision. A dark green dressing gown billows slightly as he opens the door, the movement of air causing the loose fabric to stir across her lower half.

"Are we no longer locking our doors?" he inquires with a gruff voice, water dripping from the edges of his hat, coat and down his face.

She turns slowly, a face full of mischief and amusement for his sarcastic greeting as she walks slowly, her dainty feet showing through the split in her loosely tied gown, peeks of thigh as she moved it out of her way as she turned and moved towards him with an astute face. "I knew you were coming." she states simply, walking towards him, her eyes seeing the drowned state of him. Her hands with their slender fingers and lengthy, claw-like nails giving a glimpse of the animal within her take his hat first.

"And how is that now?" he responds with a slight bob of his head as she returns, still ignoring his predatory gaze. Her hands touch him fearlessly, palms over his chest and shoulders as she removes the heavy coat from his broad shoulders. He stands ever strong, feet firmly planted as she hangs it by the fire and returns as she speaks.

"I could feel you James." Her voice is thick and rich with an intention to his name as it passes her lips. The chill from the cool night air he'd let in prickles across his skin, but he believes it to be her magic that makes his body react. He stands powerful and quiet, letting her move about her space as she pleases, taking in the subtle expressions across her calm face as they speak in short and soft words. "I can always feel you when you're near." she explains, fingers tips working to open the vest he wore, leaving his damp last layer on, a stormy sea blue shirt that swelled out around his masculine and hefty form.

"Have you felt me when I've been here by other means than in the flesh?" he asks, knowing the answer, only wanting to see the sly smile on her lips as her cupid's bow stretched and the corners of her eyes wrinkled at his playful exchange.

"You know I have." she says with a scolding hint in her words, her eyes on his as she moves to take a knee, tugging off his filthy boots and setting them by the fire.

"And you told me to come in the flesh. Did you not?" he challenges, a hunger rumbling in the words as she stands proud in front of him.

"I did." she answers softly with a nod, a section of soft and wavy hair falling over her shoulder to frame one side of the temptingly placed deep V of skin shown by the inviting and open stance her body held itself in before him.

"So you know what I am here for." his voice takes an unmistakable dark turn and she hums with a closed mouth smile as his head tilts and his shoulders square against her. She sees he would never stop trying to intimidate her although she did not fear him and would not cower to any man. Certainly not a devil like this Delaney.

"Do I?" she asks with a quick turn of her head. A deep, slow almost chuckle of a groan escapes his full parted lips at her response. The light from the flames dance across his handsome face, the stubble and grown out facial hair a frame for his plush lips that glistened as he licked them to draw attention to them. He wanted her to bend, to see her give over that hunger in his eyes for her that he was beaming down at her.

"You may be made of light Sylvana... but playing coy is not part of your sport. That is darkness in you that I put that there.“ she senses the hint of pride in his statement and the same precocious smile stays on her face as her eyes narrow for a moment. His breath hits her face from the deep exhale he lets out, his face set in knowing expression, his eyes darting over her face, watching for what he wanted to see.

"Yes you did James." she coos, raising her chin to meet the taller man's advances. "I have recalled it on many occasions." she gives him a dark glance that shows the small pearls of teeth that rest clean and sharp and ready to sink into him.

"Have you now? And for what purpose?" he teases, his nose grazing hers, his fingertips out of the line of sight of their combative intense gaze as they rustled the soft fabric against her naked skin.

"Thinking of it has helped my nightly attempts of being closer to death for a few brief moments. Your darkness gives me the need to taste that little death more often." her voice slides across his skin as if her warm hands were flush against his stomach and clawing him closer.

"Mmmm." he responds in a half hum and half growl as she sees the slightest twitch to his lips, a subtle snarl at her for her insinuation.

"A dark force like you... do you need to come so close to death James?" she asks, her hands now reaching out to linger at his sides, soft strokes of bold fingers against the swell of fabric that encased the marked and now healed body she knew so intimately. "Have you thought of me while in it's grasp?" she provokes.

"I do not have to try to be close to death. It follows me. Just as you have Sylvana." his voice almost a hiss as he invades her personal space again, nose aggressive as it drags across her cheek, his hands now venturing to her waist to hold her, to show her his intentions. "I've come all this way to fuck you." he is stern with his honesty as his statement of purpose breezes by her, she hides the shiver from the tickle of his facial hair against the shell of her ear. Her only tell being the goosebumps that he watches bloom across her skin. "Because you... little witch..." his voice scolding like he was guilting her for what she was. She could not feel it, but knew that he was flexing his power, his more sinister twist of effectiveness against her solid wall of indifference. He was resolved to break through and drown himself in her light. "You have not left my thoughts since you let me into your blaze of light by means of your velvet cunt." his teeth and words bite against her ears, then her jaw. A nip at her soft skin like a warning from a caged animal. His words make her cheeks flush hot, a mere mention of her inner power making it surge and reach out for another dose of darkness to make it know itself to a fuller extent. His darkness complimented her light, his chaos reminded her of the inner peace she had and the power that it held over others who did not have the capacity for such an existence. Her empathy and good nature were turned into something more complex when he was near her. It made her feel greed, lust, and gluttony. All things the Christians said were sins. She did not believe in sin, but him giving her a taste of the darker side of the mother had left her famished in its absence. "So do you think I've thought of you while seeking release from what you've left inside me?" he asks. His rough and strong hands held fast to her back, pulling her against him with a quick squeeze, his neck arched, face down to hers. The light exploration of his lips against her skin as he spoke ending as they hovered over hers now, sharing more than a mutual hunger but the breath that confessed such a need in it's heavy and rapid release.

He can feel her skin run hot against his palms through her thin gown. Her eyes flutter with their canopy of thick, dark lashes as they glow against the whites of her eyes, the dark brown giving way to a green that gave a lush fire to his stormy blue ones. Despite her facing away from the only source of light in her home, the fire which was now licking up the mantle with excitement, he could see her eyes burn with that hunger he wanted to invoke in her. The same she had unwillingly awoken in him.

“I think I’ve been waiting long enough." her words with want behind them, her nails now pressing through the fabric of his clothes as he felt them against his back. "I want this beast in front of me, not the one made of shadows you send on your behalf." she shakes her head, her lips giving the briefest of brushes against his. "Give me this devil Delaney they call you." her lips form a tantalizing smile for him that makes him mirror the nefarious goal they shared between them. "Fill me with your darkness James... and let me show you the light.” she hisses and seizes him just as her lips push against his.

The Mother's enthusiasm for this joining was shown across the forest as the storm outside grew strong and destructive. The glow of lightning pulses through the window as their lips meet in a frenzy of gripping teeth and tongue. As a heave of breath and ardent groan escapes him, a rumble of thunder shakes the window pane to follow his forceful pursuit of her. He doesn't refrain himself with her as they draw blood with teeth in their animalistic kisses. She finds a deep hunger in her belly she had never known before, he finds an intoxicating hush of everything he wanted to keep out of his head. It was only her in his mind, only that inner light that she poured out so selflessly into him as they drank up the other's energy.

With their fervid hands and mouths, her hands move fast to his trousers, his beastly paws leaving her gown only a memory as it's forgotten on the creaking wood floors as his heavy footsteps carry them both in their craze to her bed. He moves her as he wishes, her pliant body responding to him with eager sounds and motions. In their hungry sounds for each other, a meeting that had been in place for longer than they both even know, she leaves him bare, throwing his shirt with a blind eye as his lips move across her chest. Not even his heady mouth could distract her from what she felt from him between her thighs. The same hot and heavy cock that she'd felt twitch to release in her hands before now strained against the soft thatch of hair it rutted against. His hips moving without thought behind them as his mouth led the way of his thoughts across her supple breasts and gnawing at the pulse point in her throat. She awoke the creature within him that he had to keep tame and solitary before. But the life inside her was more than capable of handling him at his most beastly.

"James." she moans out, the first full uttered word since their minds melded into one force that swirled about, the air thick and heavy around them as they flashed against each other. He doesn't stop his lips that are sucking harshly against her bruising skin to answer her. "Fuck me." she commands, a clawed hand reaching down and grabbing his ass and pulling it towards her bent legs, wide and ready to connect them physically.

At her words, something that even now sounded almost wrong in her sweet voice, he moans, his tongue out as he pants and wastes no time wrapping his hand around his throbbing cock and guiding it into her. She was even more heavenly than in their dreams. He didn't know how she could feel so perfect not being a projection and being a real, breathing, living thing he was infiltrating. His face stays close to her, hand planted firmly on the bed as her hands roam his back and chest he sets a pace that she can't find the rhythm in. His still damp hair through her fingers, his lips at her throat she lets out her cries of pleasure that shakes the very rafters in her house. Dust shaken out of the ceiling falls like snow, the powder resembling the paints he wears in his dreams across his back and ass as he pushes into her with an increasing rabid pace. There were no flashes of others, no murmured voices vying for his attention while he was in her, there was only her. Their hearts racing together, chest to chest as she pulled him down to meet their lips again, locking her legs around him and holding him close, giving her what she needed, her peak so close she could feel her muscles on fire from the pistoning of his hips against hers. He was rough and strong, his broad shoulders a frame for her lithe and strong body as he panted and grunted like the beast she wanted with a slap of skin against skin popping like the sounds from the fire as it shifted in unnatural color that goes unnoticed by them both in their enraptured state.

With another blot of lightning, she feels her stomach muscles tense and jump. With the quick thunder that shakes the ground outside he groans against her skin, feeling his balls tighten, his vision almost entirely blinded by a warm white light as he moves within her.

"James." she calls out again. The name so uncommon for him to hear, and in such a fond way. The softness he feels, a tenderness that he's surprised by fills him as he feels her need grow. He sends all he has to her in waves, pushing in as deep as he can, his mouth open by her ear, having her take in every nuance of his moans when he lets himself feel overwhelmed by the need to release his vulnerability with her that she does so effortlessly. "Please." she begs, and another pairing of white-hot lightning and thunder pummel down with the rain outside. To hear someone begging with no fear in their voice is new for him. He feels almost dizzy in his uneven state, his darkness being challenged by powers as strong as his own. A deep and guttural moan escapes her, he feels her tense beneath him, a roar from her throat as her nails sink into the scarred skin of his back. "Harder." she demands, a growl as she turns her head to his ear, her tongue licking the sweat from his temple as she grips him by the tuft of hair on his crown and holds him like an animal trapping its prey. She opens up every level she knows how to to him and he drowns her in darkness.

She could've grown fangs and claws and howled like a wild jungle cat if she'd let herself. She feels a surge of power, a rush of wild need takes her over, and before she even registers what she's doing, the darkness takes her over, pinning him down to the mattress, one hand on his throat and the other on the headboard, pummeling her hips against him. In his pleasant surprise, his eyes open, seeing her skin glow, a haze of heat off her body as her eyes burn as they roll back down from white and connect to his. He can see the fire, his attention diverted for only a moment as he sees the greens and blues and purples, the flames huge but not burning the wooden mantle it was licking away at, spreading out onto the floor. As a deep animal growl escapes her, the sting of her nails raking down from the grip on his throat to his chest focuses him back to her as her head falls back, hair a curtain of softness that swishes across his stomach as she let's go around him. A tightness and searing heat he'd never felt, the blast of her power washing over him, leaving him gasping as the heat from her skin burns, the same from the monstrous fire behind them making them both pour with sweat that seeps into the open wounds she'd left on his chest and stings. He likes the pain, it brings him to himself as her power starts to fade and he seizes his end. Taking her down, a leg thrown over his shoulder as he pounds her into the bed, having it let out loud noises of warning for its lack of sturdiness against the devil Delaney. He bites into her shoulder, a mark of ownership at it's deepest most carnal level as he groans above her, still gasping and moaning for more from him as he gives her hard sporadic pushes, her knees back as he empties out into her everything within himself.

Left with nothing inside them left to give, they both collapse, the fire reflecting the notion as it poofs into smoldering piles of ash and ember just as they were. No words are said, but what would be appropriate after an experience like this. Even though he was more experienced than her, they both knew there was something different when they were together. It was something earth shattering and they weren't sure what to make of it. How could two people, that were so different come together in such a harmonious way as they did? As it always did, their time together left them with more questions than it did answers.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvana finds herself experiencing new things from James darkness. When a threat arises, she deals with it in a way James approves of. He repays the kindness to her that she showed him, and tries to take her advice to stop trying to control everything and just let himself feel.   
> *Violence.

They lay sprawled and submissive to the afterglow of their joining, a literal and figurative meaning of the phrase, both on their backs with their skin prickling bare against the magically charged air.   
A moment of silence that felt neither awkward or forced falls just as the rain outside. The fire a now satiated force just like them, is quiet. Only an orange glow is casted over the flickering shadows in her small home. Both lay naked and unashamed as their limbs lay loose against the furs and blankets while they catch their breath and evaluate how they feel.

Sylvana felt an unusual heaviness in her chest, a slight rumble in her stomach that felt like hunger. She did not feel exhausted but rather subdued, as if her energy was now heavier, weighted in a way it wasn’t before. 

James lay with a lightness in his chest that felt almost wrong to him and certainly out of place. If he had been a man to smile often, he would be wearing one now. The hush in the room, the stillness and most importantly the lack of intrusive voices and thoughts was not taken for granted by him as he let his eyes shut and enjoyed being the only one in his head for a moment. 

They both had each other to thank for the new breath that had been inhaled and exhaled to each other while they were joined. She felt the darkness take root within her, making a home and feeling like she saw the world in a new way. James felt engulfed by warmth, feeling his heart and mind both open up with it as it filled the cracks and voids within him. With new eyes to witness at the world, they both look to the other.

“The shadows are noisy aren’t they?” She whispers.

“They can be. But they have been made docile and do not speak to me now.” He muses, moving with a grunt to his side. “You are a mysterious creature Sylvana.” His voice is even and steady, the beads of sweat on his skin catching the low light of the dying fire.

“As are you James.” She answers with a sly smile. 

“I must go now.” He says with a nod of his head, eyes narrowed and looking to his things by the fire before moving over her and gathering the rest that were left strewn about the room. His strong sun kissed body with its sticky limbs and bowed legs covered in rings of ink are now more of a delight than ever for her to watch.

“Good for you I am not easily offended.” She grins, mostly for her own amusement as he grunts and puts his clothes back on.

“It is not my intention to offend. I have things that I need to do tomorrow. In London.” He clarifies.

“I assumed as much. You and your foolish plans.” She says sitting up in a relaxed pose, legs over the side of the bed. “Your promises you must keep to your league of the damned. Your means to an end for your seemingly selfish but somehow not goals?” She says to the darkened room.. 

He looks over to her for a moment and she hears a grunt in response and she could’ve sworn a smile passed over his lips.

“You sound like me.” He huffs out, button his best over his shirt. 

“Well...” She gives a coy shrug. “I believe you did leave a bit of yourself in me James.” 

“Mmm.” Another ghost of a smile at her remark. 

“More than just the darkness.” She grins and stands to find her dressing gown. 

“Yes. I did ejaculate inside you.” He says factually.

She laughs quietly to herself, pulling the gown around her to ward off the chill settling across her sweat damped skin. “Now you sound like you.” She retorts with pursed lips.

“That can’t be helped.” He says with a louder grunt, tugging on one of his boots. 

“Not even a heavy dose of light can make Delaney stay the night. Or speak figuratively.”

“There’s no time for such things.” He groans out again, his other boot following the first. 

She finds his answer surprising. He didn’t say he didn’t want to, or that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Just that he had no time for it at the moment. “Yes, yes. What a human man you are afterall.” She rolls her eyes as she feeds the fire. Rising, he catches her off guard as he moves silently behind her.

“I will be back to see you again.” His eyes look over her face, his handsome symmetry not lost on her now in its closeness. 

“For the same purpose?” She asks with a tilt of her head. 

“Yes.” A blunt answer as always. “But also for reasons other than fucking.” 

She stares up at him as he fearlessly holds her gaze, his eyes looking large and almost resembling those of a dogs in their honesty. A deep color and expressive brows that gave away a hint of politeness, even kindness towards her. What a complicated man he was. She’d never met a complicated man before. “Well I should contact father about the dowry with that talk James.” She puts a hand to his chest and deflects her thoughts with cheekiness as she walks away from him. She doesn’t see the smile that comes across his face at her joking answer. He felt so much lighter, like things were easier around her, even finding her delivery of tease to be something not annoying and deflecting from his checklist of things to do. Her energy made him slow down and take things as they came, and he was still adjusting to this inner calm. 

“Do you wish to see me again?” He asks, taking his coat, now almost dry and certainly warm and puts it on. 

“I do.” She says giving him a half turn back to face him. “I will admit I enjoyed myself and I’d like to do it again. When we first met I would’ve never guessed I’d grow quite so fond of you James. But I do enjoy having you around.” She says with a swish of her skirts as he moves towards her with his hat on, the darkness casted over his front as he stands a powerful silhouette against the now lively fire.

“I have had no one tell me this since returning.” He remarks. “It would seem that no one enjoys being around me. Except you.” His gives a raise of his chin and a thoughtful narrowing of his eyes as he casts his eyes down at her. 

“We are the only ones who can truly understand each other.” She offers more sweetly. 

“Mmm.” He grunts and nods in agreement. 

“Do you... enjoy being around me James?”

He gives her a curious look, leaning in closer as he speaks purposely. “If I did not have very important matters to see to so soon... I would be staying.” He gives as an answer. Before hovering close to her lips for a fleeting moment, enough to make the thought of kissing him again come to her mind before he moves away and to the door. 

“A Delaney answer a woman like me can appreciate.” She says with a sigh. It was the best a creature of such inner turmoil like him could do. And that was all she could ask of him. 

“It is an honest one.” He points a finger her way with the door open. “And I will be seeing you soon Sylvana.” And with a tip of his hat he was gone back into the night.

\---------

With the distance between them having grown so far, the darkness begins to fade over time. Although she found it fading surprisingly slowly as the days went on. It didn't rear its head often as she kept herself distracted with work for the coming winter, readying herself and making her wares to sale at the village to make a little extra money for supplies. It only became impossible to ignore when spirits sought her out, and they did often as she found out. This must've been a taste of what James felt. Faces she'd seen before, those she'd lost in her very bed to various reasons beyond her control or skill would watch her from the treeline, stand in the river with their gaunt faces and judge her failure. She didn't feel guilt for her not keeping them alive as they wished, but she was starting to understand the wall that James kept up to keep himself protected from outside influence. 

One day, not even a week past their fruitful rendezvous, the spirits begin acting curiously. Ones she had helped started appearing instead of ones that felt unwelcoming. They pointed their ghostly knobby fingers towards her and stood with unwavering gazes of their clouded eyes. She couldn't help but feel a tingle of concern for their attention, but she felt no malice from them. 

Later in the evening, their purpose became clearer as the fire began to speak. Her darkness had been swirling around inside her like smoke all day, coming to the surface to seek something out then dipping back down. It was now at the surface, something cold under the warmth of the surface of her skin, it was almost as if she could feel it moving against her tense muscles as she stood, captivated by the flames. 

"What is this?" she asks with a breathy voice as her eyes narrow, studying what the fire was trying to show her. 

"Warning." it answers, the darkness shooting up her spine and grabbing her attention. "Prepare." it sighs out and she feels her fingertips begin to tingle. "Coming for you."

"James?" she asks, already suspecting the answer. She would've felt him. 

"No." it answers, an ember shooting out at her feet to state the severity of the warning. "They." it's tendrils reach out and point just as the spirits had. "They want to kill you." it says with a more nunciation in the language of her ancestors. She sees multiple sets of boots in the woods, all dirty with soil, but the remnants of the city and sea still clinging to the worn leather. 

"Then I invoke the spirits of the mother for protection." she states, dropping to her knees in front of the fire. "Join my spirit with that of the danger and darkness that she holds. Let us show them the power that resides within the gods of old. Let us show them the strength of the mother and her fierce protection she gives all her children who serve her." her words are a whispered chant, something she'd seen her mother's and aunts do when their safety was threatened. She knew that the mother would protect her, but she didn't know how this new darkness within her would manifest itself.

\---

Three men, hired by the East India Company to track James and find out where he had been hiding had found her. They were ordered to kill her, to send a message to James that they would find him and any whore he spent his time with. But they hadn't expected to find someone just as lethal as James when they came upon her homestead. The night gave them cover, but she knew the forest and the moon far better than they could ever dream. 

She stands, waiting and chest heaving in her power as she could hear with cat like ears as they approached her door. Just as a patient jungle cat, she waited for her moment to strike.

They break each lock with their large metal tools, their boots noisy to even common ears on the stone and moss covered steps that lead to her door. They trampled the herbs that slept in their beds in front of her window, and she heard her dear friend Prieten neigh and stomp, warning her of their appearance.

With a single solitary squeak of the old hinges placed long before she was born, calling out it's warning of intrusion against the quiet backdrop of the dark of night outside, she feels her body respond to the threat. 

They enter with wide eyes, seeing a blackened silhouette against the fire, her cloak masking her form from them. She could count them as she heard the pairs of feet move into her home, desecrating the sacred energy gathered there. 

"Oy...witch." one of them gruffs out with a far too confident nod of chin. 

Just then, she hears a familiar sound she didn't expect. The thump of African drums, the precursor to the arrival of James’ beating heart. 

As the men stand with their bludgeoning instruments and knifes in their large paws, her fingers sprout claws and the fire extinguishes itself in one fatal swoop of wind that sends a deadly chill across the room. They hear a purr that raises into a growl, a warning of a panther's scream they'd never heard before, a harbinger of a banshee wail that none of them could've ever been prepared for. They see the flash of her eyes catching the sliver of moonlight through the open door, solid black. A flash of sharp pointed teeth before she unleashes the beast that inhabited her upon them. 

With a scream that pierced through the forest, waking the birds in their nests, she lunges and attacks. Her eyes saw in the night just as clearly as they did the day. Her claws ripped and gouged, taking out chunks of flesh wherever they touched. She pounced and lept, breaking furniture and their bones as she did so. Her animals in the barn were rioting, a loud and unsettled noise that carried through the forest at they felt the power from within her walls shift into something menacing and to be feared. 

She couldn't tell if it was her heartbeat or James' by the time his form darkened her doorway. But the men were all in pieces across her living quarters, the blood splatter up the walls in spurts so thick he could taste the metallic tang as soon as he breathed in. 

"SYLVANA!" he calls out in his booming and rough voice.

The fire reignites and displays the gore before him. Body parts strewn about, veins still pumping out blood as they emptied out into nothing, the blood as a sacrifice to the earth as it leaked through the floorboards and into the foundation of the home. 

"Here, James." her weakened voice calls out, half hidden behind the end of her bed as her arms lift her up and into his sight. He moves quickly to her, his boots sloshing through the gore without hesitation as he picks her up and lays her on the bed. 

"What is this?" he asks, seeing her still with fangs and claws, her eyes black as a new moon night as she winced at his touch, feeling absolutely exhausted of all her energy, both light and dark. 

"They came for you." she says, whimpering and reaching to leg. 

"You're injured." he states mostly for himself as he moves to shut and secure her door with her table, taking off his hat and coat to prepare to return the favor to her and heal her with his brand of magic. 

There’s a worrying amount of blood pouring from her thigh. It soaks through her dress and gown and he wastes no time stripping her of it to assess the damage she’d taken. She doesn’t fight him as he does so, her eyes growing heavy and her resilience weakening, she moves like a doll in his hands as he does with her what he wishes. He does a practical tourniquet around her leg before gathering supplies and losing clothes as he does so. Left in only his shirt which dusted over his thighs, the blue now stained black in places from her blood, he speaks in words she doesn’t understand.

He holds her thigh tightly, his eyes shut and lips popping and clicking in ways she didn’t know how to replicate as he chants over her. She holds in sounds of pain, not faring as well as he had when he begins sticking his fingers into the slice from a knife, then slathering it in a mixture of herbs, brandy and his own blood. She stays conscious, watching him hunched, face focused and at work on her as his muscles moved with tension, his hands firm and sure against her skin. 

Her own transformation helps her, her body returning to its natural form and her own magic giving its last drops up to helping out James.

“You will survive this.” He states in a deep tone with a nod, wrapping a bandage around her leg. “But now you must rest.” He says, moving her to the head of the bed, removing the blood soaked furs and replacing them as he smoothes out a duvet over her. 

“Thank you James.” She sighs out. 

“No need. You did the same for me.” He answers in an obvious tone. “They were after you because of me. I can spare time and effort as you did since this is my doing.” 

 

“The Mothers doing.” She corrects, her face paled from blood loss and exhaustion. “The spirits brought you to me. We are not at fault.”

“No but these men would not have come if not for me. And you do not deserve the violence your association with me brings.” His words were almost sweet as she watches him look around the room and assess what needed to be done next. “You. Eat and drink this. Stay in bed. I will... take care of this.” He grunts as he sits her up on a pile of pillows with bread and fruit and water. 

She nibbles away as she watched him with tired but curious eyes as he removes the men piece by piece from her home, throwing them to the river. He gathers buckets of saw dust from outside and helps soak up the blood, hammering in a temporary lock to the door. Neither speaks, her barely able to do so, feeling so very small and weak.

“Their weapons are out of sight but best you keep them. The locks will need to be replaced. I know a man that can do that.” He surveys the room once again. For now you are back to being functional.” He says, his shirt and skin now dirty and smudged from the work put in.

“Thank you.” She says, now laying on her side.

“I cannot feel any more threats against you in this moment.” He states, wiping his hands on a cloth. “But I will stay with you.” He paused, standing by her bedside.”If you wish.” He places his gun on the bedside table.

“Please.” She asks politely, her body craving connection and warmth and comfort. The softness, the loneliness she denied the existence of, as it was practical comes to the surface in her weakened state. She craves comfort and touch, companionship. 

He takes his shirt off, now bare as she was as he wipes off with the basin at the foot of the bed before crawling in with her. “Here. You need to elevate yourself.” He says sitting up and pulling her between his legs to his chest, a pillow under the wound on her leg. She’s limp in his arms, giving herself over to his demands and he realizes what a state she must be in. Going through a transformation and an injury with blood loss had probably reverted her to a more helpless state. He assumed this was not something she was used to feeling. 

“Now you rest. I will keep you safe.” He says with the same almost soldier like authority. “Do not thank me again Sylvana.” He preemptively says and he sees the small smile on her lips. “It is  
not needed.” He insists.

“How did you know to come to me James?” She asks instead.

“I felt it.” His eyes move across the orange flickering shadows in her home. 

“Has my light made you feel things now? Instead of controlling them.”

“I can do both.” His tone almost hints at defensiveness. “But yes.” He answers in a kinder tone after a pause. “It came to me in a flash. I heard you screaming and I knew there was danger.”

“I was warned by the dead this time. Your darkness is very interesting.”

“So is your light.” He responds in a way just as withholding as she had. “Do you wish me to stay like this?” He asks after she resituates on his chest.

“Yes. I need comfort.” She admits. Her light inside him stirs at her honesty. “I respond best to kindness. Tenderness.” She sighs out, her eyes shut as her face nuzzles into his warm and fuzzy chest. “I know you are a stranger to such things. But this is nice as well. I appreciate you making yourself uncomfortable on my behalf.” She chooses to say besides thank you.

“I am not uncomfortable.” He clarifies, his hand moving to rest on her upper arm, keeping the blankets pulled up over her shoulders. his head rests back against the wood headboard, his eyes shutting as he feels the weight of her against him. “I have the capacity for...tenderness.” He says hesitantly. “My life never calls for such behavior. I am out of practice.” He admits. “But you showed it to me. I know of it’s healing properties.” He becomes more matter of fact before his words could be considered something sweet. 

“You are doing just fine James.” She clarifies, fingers lazily stroking his chest as she listens to the drum of his heartbeat. “Will you stay until morning?” Her voice almost taken over by sleep as her lips pout and go slack.

“I will stay until I know any danger has passed for you. I will not be leaving you as you sleep.” Is his clear cut answer.

“Thank you James.” She says with a subtle snuggle into his firm body, soaking up the energy he was giving freely to her.

He does not correct her. Merely lets her rest, his own body slowly losing its tension, responding to the gentle affection she was showing him. Something if he had been more aware and less full of her light would’ve possibly worried him. But with a reasonable woman like Sylvana, a very useful and helpful woman such as Sylvana, not even the way his thumb stroked against her arm gave him anything to worry about. He merely took the advice of the smartest woman he knew and let himself feel instead of try to control.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James shows sympathy for Sylvana. Things start becoming very strange for Sylvana and she seeks answers, but they find her first.

James had awoken before Sylvana. His broken sleep schedule was interrupted by true rest while he lay with her in her primitive bed. It was makeshift and simple, feathers and cotton and fur. But he somehow found it more comfortable than his bed at home. Perhaps it was that every stitch had been made with intention. Every feather collected by means other than violence. It was a showing of the woman who lay across his chests ability to create and mold her surroundings to her use. And he knew a thing or two about bending purpose and using things. In particular people. 

But he did not manipulate Sylvana. Even after showing her brutality when attacked, their magic creating something grey and wild and mesmerizing to him as she’d transformed into something else. He hadn’t seen that sort of magic since the elders in Africa. He’d never been able to do it himself, only the most powerful had. So he knew that their mingling together was no child’s play. It was very real and potentially very dangerous. But what piqued his interest the most was its potential to be of use to him.

She rests in a dreamless sleep. His magic sedating her to aid her healing, keeping her in a suspended state so she couldn’t tire herself out in her own head. He needed her well again, he wouldn’t have her poking around his mind to occupy herself while there were things to be done. 

With the sun rising, his bones tell him it’s time for him to rise as well. News of the failed assassination or kidnapping would be reaching its buyers soon and be had work to do. 

Her limp body bends to his will, sliding out of her bed and covering her back up after a quick look at the slash on her leg. She was already mending, perhaps another side effect of their magic being used together. And yet another reason to keep her near.

After shedding his clothes, dipping into the river that was quiet on this morning, he rings out the blood from the cloth and leather and then himself. He couldn’t give anyone any reason to accuse him, or her or anything. With the mess in her home handled, his knees and the scratches from the wooden floor proof in their redness that, he’d hidden evidence of the blood bath the night before. The rest of the proof washes downstream and the scrapes agitation is calmed by the cold babbling water. 

He returns nude, feeling the elements at play around him as his new interest had suggested to him. The wind wicked away the droplets they clung to his sun-darkened skin, marked with broad bands of ink and decorative scars, some of which even he didn’t know the meaning of. The dirt cakes to his feet, making his trek soft back to the stone, earth, and moss-covered home. The fire dries his clothes, warming the chill from the river off his skin. In the city, the elements seemed to do nothing but attack him. The rain soaked him and chilled his bones, the wind bit at him, the earth was covered in horse shit and muck and stank. And fires held warmth but no quiet as the spirits fought desperately to be heard through the medium to another plane, the flames a thin veil between two of them if one was willing to listen, and James was not. 

She wakes with a groan, feeling the exhaustion from pulling herself out of sleep. “James?” She asks with a soft voice that he still hasn’t gotten used to hearing. No one ever said his name like that. But no one knew him as she did. She was once again serving the softness that his life so lacked. She was back to building her inner light, having disposed of his darkness in her attack.

“Mmph?” He answers from his crouched position by the fire and moves with a confident gate towards her.

“I thought you would’ve gone.” She admits.

“Had to make sure you were well enough before I did. I have taken care of the mess.” He states curtly with a nod. “Are you hungry?” He asks with eyes that dart from hers to the bed as if they were uncertain how to show concern for someone else.

“Yes.” A simple response he appreciates, a grunt and another nod as he moves to fetch her water and bread. 

“Then you need to eat.” Is his response.

“The hens should have laid by now.” She says moving to sit up and finding herself wincing and whimpering.

“You are healing. Even though very well, you are still hurt. I will bring you enough food so you do not have to leave your home today. It is not safe and you need your rest.” He hands her a metal mug and a chunk of dark bread to hold her over. “I need to get back to London. But by tomorrow you will be able to walk without much intervention. Your wound was wide but not deep to affect your movements for long.” He says like a medic in his former school. “Eggs.” He grunts, bowing out of the conversation as her sleepy face follows him out the door. She sits in silence and as the first bite touches her lips she finds herself ravenous. 

After helping her change clothes, redressing her wounds and making her a pan of eggs he departs. He had taken care of her the best he could, more than he would anyone else, but what had happened had been his fault. So to keep her on his side he would continue to be helpful to her as his plans allowed. 

She surprises him, taking his hand as he leans over to say goodbye in his tall hat and leather accessories. She keeps him close and kisses his cheek with no lingering glances or insinuation. A delicate gesture to show affection and appreciation. The hairs on the back of his neck prickle at the rush her lips send across his skin. Instead of fighting it, he gives in, knowing her energy would serve him in the matters he needed to attend to. 

“Thank you for your help, James.” Is her simple statement of gratitude.

“You need your rest, now.” He commands with a deep grunt and another authoritative nod. He wags her hand once that holds his weakly before placing it gently back to her lap. “I will visit you soon. Whether that will be in person or not is yet to be seen.” As always he keeps it to the point and honest. And she can’t fault him for that.

————-

 

Sylvana had healed, and quickly much to her excitement. Only a thin raised pink scar on her thigh was left as proof of the encounter. It was not the only one on her body, all telling stories as they broke the clean planes of her brown skin. From violence from her fellow man to being a child and falling into a bush of thorns, they all held important moments and reminders. They told stories of her life just as James’ markings did she thinks, he had not been far from her mind since he left her. The high noon sun warmed her thighs as she traced her fingertips across the marks on her legs. It was late in the month, a full moon would be coming soon and the girl that usually came by this time to purchase tonics for her mother had not shown. With her chores finished from an early rising before the sun, Sylvana leaves the confines of her fenced garden and the long-dead stump from an ancient tree that resided in it. She moves slowly, expecting the girl to appear at any moment but she never does. She even moves slowly enough to notice a birds nest in her window, something unusual in appearance for this time of year. It even had little eggs resting in it as she peered into it with its feathers and twine and sticks. 

“An omen?” She asks her horse as it sees her studying the mundane object. “Peculiar.” She says with narrowed eyes. 

She readies Prieten and a basket of the girl's wares along with another monthly order she delivers to an elderly woman who had been receiving the same tonics since the days of her mother. She was the only one to receive such treatment from Sylvana in the village. 

The woods are quiet. A rustling of falling leaves as the wind is lazy this day. The ride is spent with her face toward the canopy over the dirt path to the village. She closes her eyes and feels the rays of the sun that peek through the now thinning foliage. She hears a rustling in the trees and seeks out its source but she could not find one. The path didn’t seem to have been traveled much either, the tracks from wheels and hooves not fresh and beaten in, but loose and powdery. She started to wonder if people thought her dead or were avoiding this part of the wood. This would be entirely possible with the men that came through after her. They could’ve asked about her at the alehouse and word travels so fast among the villagers. 

She wouldn’t say she had ever been welcomed by the townsfolk. She saw it as they tolerated her existence. As she didn’t cause much fuss even when she didn’t venture into their part of the land. But on this afternoon, the looks were tense. If they even dare to meet her eyes at all. She keeps her head down, her dress and boots blending in with those of the other women in the village, a simple style and bonnet she had to blend in. Even the woman who was usually rather pleasant to receive her business avoids her gaze as she moves by her cart set up in the street. She noticed flowers and berries and she stops. So late in the year for both. She recalls the nest and wonders if there’s something going on with the woods that she doesn’t know about. But how could that be? She moves to touch the berries, overripe and some bursting, her fingers come away with red stains of juice, she licks it from her fingers. 

“So late for berries.” She remarks.

“Had an odd late bloom early this month.” The woman states with indifference. “Flowers too. Lots of odd things seem to be happening around here lately.” She says with more malice in her voice that Sylvana reads immediately as she gives her a kind smile and turns to leave.

“Oh, you’re here! Lovely.” The old woman with milky eyes says as she knocks on her door. 

“Yes, why would I not be?” She asks with gentle words as she hands the bottles to her best customer.

“There were men what came looking for you recently. Bad lot they were.” She shakes her head and walks slowly to a nearby table to set her haul down and get her money. “The gossip started soon after.” She adds.

“What gossip?” She asks earnestly.

“Tell me, dear, is there a man staying with you?”

“No.” Although she had a guess as to who she was referring to.

“Then no worries.” She says dismissively.

“From the looks or lack thereof I’ve been receiving today I don’t believe the gossip ended there.” She says leaning in and giving her a friendly smile.

“Your lot always was smart.” He smiles. “There was a man we were warned about some weeks ago. Came through we saw and headed toward your place. Dark man. Dangerous eyes.” She shakes her head. “Some heard him speaking some language to one of the fire pits. Scared the children and women.”

Sylvana remains quiet, willing her to tell her more.

“The word is that you are sleeping with the devil, love.” She says in a whisper. “People know about witches and they fear them. They don’t understand.” She sighs in a defeated way. “No witch has ever done any evil against me.” She shrugs. “But the people are scared of you. Think you’ve turned to darkness. What with that man n that lot lookin' for ya. They’re growing restless as the stories build.”

“Stories?”

“That you’re carrying the devil's child. Sold your soul. Orgies and blood and all that sort of nonsense.” She waves a hand dismissively. “Old storybook fodder.” She gruffs out. 

“Well, I’m very happy to inform you that is exactly what it is. None of those things are true.” She shakes her head and gives an appreciative glance to the woman’s nod of approval. 

“I’ll be sure to spread the word.” She claims. “In the meantime be on alert. You know how these people can get when they get well miffed about something.” She warns before they part with a mutual nod and she shuts the door.

Sylvana lets Prieten drink from the bucket she’d pulled up from the well as she sits with the open bag of oats she would feed her next. 

“Long ride.” Sylvana hears whispered into her mind.

She nods and rubs the side of the horses head affectionately. This is followed by a big yawn as she started to feel tired. Perhaps the energy of the town was draining her. Moving into a space of people who were all throwing out negative thoughts could be exhausting for her. 

In the midst of standing to stretch to wake herself up, she sees a set of pale faces from an alley just out of the corner of her vision. But when she tries to confront them they disappear. She keeps her eyes shifting, narrowed as they take in the space around her. The wide dirt paths, the whispering townspeople, mostly women she saw with children held fast to their skirts in her presence. The wood and stone buildings for public use looking newer than the moss-covered homes that were sagging in their age, thatched roofs that were misshaped from seeing many winters. The almost straight main road she looked down was well traveled but no one moved near her current resting place. 

Another yawn, a nuzzle of a wet nose from her companion as she smiles as gives her another handful of oats before she mounts her and heads on her way.

The trees where thick, vertical bars keeping tight to the edges of the man-made path. The shades of green and brown mix into a blur, the evergreens still holding true to their name as she trotted her way home. 

More alert than when she was in town, feeling the weight of the town's energy leaving her as she became more deeply a part of the woodland surroundings she gets that feeling of being watched again.

She could see the moving shapes, one on either side of the path as they darted and fused into the thick foliage. But they made no sounds that any living creature would. But what unusual behavior for spirits. Their grayscale appearance was sometimes solid, sometimes ghostly. What she could guess to be flowing skirts dashed behind them as they moved with the pace of her animal companion. As was her way, she did not fear them, they could not hurt her, but she had never encountered behavior like this from human spirits before.

As she moves into her homestead in the shadow of the rocky mountain, a humble man made but constructed from the earth house that was nearly camouflaged within its surroundings comes into view. Moss grew up its sides, accompanied by ivy and the mix of modern shingles within the thatched roof hold leaves and branches atop it that give it more protection and show its age. She houses Prieten in the humble barn, the quickly approaching dusk signaled to her to house the other animals away as well. Her sheep and goats with their noises of greeting and bells around their necks make a broken chorus of sound that signaled the conclusion of another day. 

As she watches her friends move in their miss matched waddles and gates into their hay covered enclosures, a noise not from the animals catches her attention. A rumble of her stomach from hunger that commanded seeing to. She rubs her stomach and inwardly promises herself to solve the issue soon. After setting a pan into the fire to heat, she goes with her basket to settle the chickens and see if any more eggs had been laid that day. It was a rare thing, but she didn’t want them to stay too long in the beds, she didn’t need more chickens and less useable eggs. To her surprise, the first nest gives an egg. With a shrug that would accept the anomaly as it were, she continues on. The second nest also bears an egg, two on the third. Now, this was most unusual. 

“What is going on dear girls?” She asks, a basket full of eggs in her hands as the chicken flutter and cluck around her skirts. They gave her no answer. 

As she settles in her more comfortable and plain dress, thick wool socks on her feet, she moves about the house in a lazy fashion dotted with loud yawns that resembled roars keep emerging. She stands with her hands on her hips, considering the order in which to conclude her evening. Clear the table of its various wrappings, dead flowers, and twine or simply eat amongst it and deal with it later. She chooses later with the heaviness she feels in her limbs. 

 

The rouge burning spats of oil and lard wake her as they jump out from the searing pan and onto her bare skin, her sleeves rolled up in preparation for cooking. Her stew simmers, her bread nearly finished in the hearth as she takes an egg and cracks it into the hissing iron circle. Her brow furrows, lips pursed as she counts two yolks within the one egg. Not an alarming thing to happen on its own, but within the context of the day she’d had it felt more like an omen than it would alone. Another egg gives her the same result, the third normal as she feels unsettled by it. 

Sitting at her simple square wooden table, her chair creaking under her weight from age and use she slumps back against the slats and begins to answer the call of her empty stomach. Once the food touches her lips, she finds herself ravenous. Finishing nearly the entire pot on her own in one sitting, the eggs and half a loaf of bread. She groans, setting the bowl onto the table after turning her chair back toward it after enjoying her meal in the warmth of the fire. She had been hoping she might be sent word from the mother, some sort of explanation for the day's events, but she receives nothing in her passive waiting.

As she stretches and lets out a noise of contentment she bends to fetch the bowl to put it away, didn’t want the mice to finish off what was left for her during the night. But in her tired state, her hands fumble from the sight before her. She drops the bowl, saved from shattering as it was made of wood, but the clatter it made went unnoticed by her as her eyes remained transfixed on the littered table top. What had been a collection of dead flowers, dried for the old woman’s tonics, were now alive again. The blooms in color, the stems plump and green. She keeps her eye on them as if they might move as she kneels to fumble blindly and grab the bowl. With constant eye contact, she puts the bowl in her basin, turning to lean against it, hands resting behind her on its edge. A few slow blinks and she’s willing to look away. 

“What is going on?” She demands, her face turned towards the fire. “Other things can be played to coincidence but this cannot. This has never happened.” She shakes her head and points to the table. 

Once again. She receives only silence. 

She lets out an angry sigh, posture slumping as she makes her way to her bed, her soft but annoyed face set the same as she glares at the fire, getting into bed. “Some help you are.” She mutters, finally resting her head as sleep takes her quickly to another plane.

With a jolt as if she were falling she enters into her dreams. But something was different. The overcast sky and haze of fog were unusual. What was Always peak summer, teeming with life and sun was now darkened, the colors less vivid, but still there. At her arrival, a dim sun streaks through sad looking clouds, the trees bending to the wind that felt like rain. 

Then she hears it. That thump of James’. Hearing it from the direction of the river her feet carry her quickly, feeling the dew left on her naked skin as she moves through the fog, droplets clinging and growing to her hair as it mats itself to her skin. The closer she gets to the sound, the darker the sky becomes. The moon moving overhead in an unnatural way as it enlarges and rises with each press of her foot into the earth. 

 

As she reaches the river's edge, it’s become night. A full and strikingly large moon high in the sky. She expects to look into the moonlit black water and find James, but he isn’t there. The rhythm has changed to something more melodic, something more drums than a heartbeat. It didn’t send vibrations through the air that she felt, it only gave her a hungry curiosity as the fog clears and the form of a woman appears, hidden half in shadow and half brilliantly lit by the spotlight of the moon hanging directly over her head. 

She was slight, with straight black hair, a long dress of the same color with a collar and coverings of blue-black ravens wings. Her silhouette was intimidating and Sylvana believes it was purposeful. Her face is downturned, her hands beneath the choppy surface of the water, the feathers of her dress rustling as she shook. 

Sylvana moves forward as stalling now might only leave her with more questions. As soon as her feet submerge into the water the woman’s head begins to slowly rise and intently watch her move forward. She made no expression, her face painted in white and black, resembling a skull. Sylvana could see full lips and dark eyes, high cheekbones that could cut as she pushed herself through the rushing current to meet her in the middle. 

“You’re James’ mother.” She says softly with recognition now. She’d seen her in his dreams before. But that did not explain why she was here now. 

“Salish.” Her voice sounds wrong as if it were chopped and mixed and backward. No human tongue made such a sound. 

Sylvana did not know what she meant but stood her ground as the woman stood up straight. Salish began circling Sylvana as if she were prey. Her shoulders hunched and head protruding, studying her as she moved with the smoothness only a spirit can in the water, the rush of it not affecting her movements at all. She was fluid and the feathers rose and fell with her chest as she breathed with no sound, only movement.

She stops in front of Sylvana. Her hands covered in the same white bark as James’ move slowly towards the still living woman’s face. Her words come out again, as clicks and pops and hums. A deep throaty reverberation that Sylvana could not replicate. One eerily long finger makes contact with Sylvanas skin. An X drawn on her forehead with red paints. The woman’s fingers run down to shut Sylvanas eyelids, two fingers streaming down her face in black and white. Salish continues to speak, one palm, having been raised and spoken loudly at in a ritualistic gesture lands on her chest between her breasts. The white paint thick and oozing down her chest and stomach in drips that reached all the way to her thighs. Another hand, raised and celebrated in the same fashion comes to contact with her stomach. Black paint reacts the same and trickles down her skin. Sylvana accepts the touch but does not understand it. Salish’s voice rises, louder and louder as Sylvanas eyes grow wider and wider. She screams, a loud boom that shakes the trees, words Sylvanas never heard are shouted at her as she gnashes her teeth, eyes black and wild and teeth inky as fluid pours from her mouth and down her chin. She removes her hands from her body, up into the air with the accompaniment of lighting and thunder, bringing them together in a violent slap of grey color and moving too quickly for Sylvana to react to as Salish’s hands grab hold of her tightly and they both plummet into darkness.

The water is as black as a moonless sky. Sylvana thrashes, feeling as if she were being attacked, feeling hands touching her in intimate places,. Bubbles and a pounding current surround her as she swirls and is moved against her will by ghostly hands and the water itself. She tries through instinct to reach the surface of the water but she’s held captive. What she assumed were Salish’s hands are gripping her around her waist, it felt as if she had talons like the birds her feathers came from as it made Sylvana’s skin sting and flash hot. 

Sylvana escapes, the river disappearing along with the painful hands. She shifts into a different medium, the water now thick, as she emerges from a bed of dark rich soil with a gasp into a bright and beaming sun. With wild eyes and a heaving chest, her fingers form claws into the bottom of the flower bed in her garden she emerges from. Her knees sticking out of the dirt, legs half exposed in the now, mess of loose and spilled earth. 

She catches her breath, the damp dirt sticking in clumps to her skin, she sees there are now flowers, vines entangled in her hair as of it were made of them. The flowers in her bed obscure her vision as they stand unnaturally tall. 

“I was beginning to wonder about you.” A familiar woman’s voice says that Sylvana hasn’t heard in years.

“Mother?!” She calls out, a clear frantic sound in her voice as she grunts and raises herself to her hands and knees from the ground. “MOTHER!” She calls out like an injured child, on her hands and knees crawling the short distance to the tree stump where she sat in a white flowing gown underneath a high and powerful sun. 

“Hello, my child.” She says with a smile as Sylvana throws herself to her, kneeling and putting her head in her lap, hands clutches to her thighs.

“It has been so long!” She says with pain in her words as she looks up to see her mother’s soft face just the same as the last time she’d seen it.

“It has.” She nods.

“Why?” She demands with hurt in her eyes.

“You did not need me.” She states simply. 

“Do I need you now?” Sylvana asks with a gulp. 

“You’re going to.” She nods in sympathy

 

"Why? What is going to happen? Things have been so strange all day." she rushes out, looking up at her mother with her hands on her knees. 

"Not what will happen... it has already begun." she says with a slow shake of her head.

"I have grown so tired of riddles Mother, please give me answers." her voice reflects the exhaustion she feels both in body and mind.

"Come the next full moon, you will not bleed." she says a tender hand brushing back the wild mane that was encasing her now wide-eyed daughter.

"I-" Sylvana begins.

"Yes." her Mother answers, knowing the question already. "The gift that the Mother sent you is here. Although they are very small. They are very mighty indeed." she says proudly. 

Sylvana sits back on her heels, looking at her stomach, the slashes of paint still there from her earlier encounter. "The woman...the eggs. The flowers." she whispers, fingertips tentatively to touch the still flat surface.

"It is why. You and that Delaney's power together is something special. A physical joining of your energies is manifesting itself and growing. Your own powers are nourishing it, helping it grow in all ways." her voice is soft and sweet and so affectionate. A subtle but easy smile on her face as she beams down at her only child. 

"The child is the cause of this?" she says with a furrowed brow. 

"That and the mixing of yours and Delaney's powers. The light, the life inside you is growing stronger, and it's spreading to the things around you. He now holds the light, carrying it into the city. You hold his darkness, aiding you here in the wood. As parents and as individuals your close accompaniment will only serve you both to grow stronger." she explains, her fingers now treading through the dark strands of hair that fell across Sylvana's shoulders. 

"We make each other stronger. So our child will be strong as well?" she asks with a hopeful inflection.

"This child will be very special indeed. It will bring forth the best and worst in you both. It will bring forth to fruition your wishes and dreams. He will have his revenge, his answers. You will have the community you always wanted, our bloodline continuing on and only becoming stronger now. No longer diluted by non-gifted humans. You will both have your legacy's fulfilled by this child. It will carry on long after you are both gone."

"I won't be alone any longer?" she whispers out, a deep fear she kept locked away since the sudden passing of her Mother, the sickness that took her aunt's leaving her all alone for so many years. She hadn't wanted their family to end with her, she wanted the ancient gift bestowed upon them to continue, for her to do her part to make it so. But she hadn't known how to do it. No mere mortal man had ever been worthy. She hadn't even entertained the thought of James giving her a child. Not with his clear selfishness and tendency to disappear. He had his own interests and they were not going to be put aside. 

"There are changes coming Sylvana. And it will be hard. You will not like the journey, but let me assure you it is worth the destination." she enthuses gently. 

"But James..." she shakes her head rapidly, about to share her thoughts on him being suited for fatherhood.

"This child will serve his interests. His darkness makes him egotistical, yes. It makes him cold and hardened. But do not worry, as he will be a protector on this journey for you both. He will lead you into the new world, into your new life together. You will be partners in raising the child. There is no promise beyond that." she explains. 

"A new world?" she says with clear hesitation.

"James will be asking you to join him on a dangerous journey. And you must go with him."

"Leave? Leave our home?" she says with a hand to her chest, feeling her chest ache at the thought. 

"There is a new home that awaits you across the water. With those like us. You will not be alone when you give birth. You will be around women who understand our ways. People who can help you raise this child to reach it's potential."

"I only wish you could be there. As it should be. Generations bringing in new ones." her eyes look far away as her face falls, a sadness she let herself feel in the moment for the loss of her mother. 

"Silly child. I will be there. Your aunts will be there, those you've never met will be there to witness this event. You are never truly alone with you are one with the Mother, my sweet. You know this."

She swallows, taking a deep breath and returning her gaze to her mother. "I do miss you." she rasps out.

"I know. And you always will. As I miss you. As your child will miss you one day. It is the way of things. Everything is temporary on your plane. Remember that when your chosen path becomes rough. A gift such as this would not be given to a woman who could not handle it. The Mother has faith in you, and you should have faith in yourself." she says confidently, holding her chin up to her and leaning in. 

"Yes, Mother." she answers meekly. 

Sylvana remains quiet for a moment, basking in the warmth of her mother's skin, the same of the sun that fell in beams around them. "What of James' mother?" she asks. "She took me beneath the water and hurt me. Should I fear her?" she inquires.

"Their ways are different from ours. Some mother, different father." she nods knowingly. "She means you no harm. She was blessing you and the child. She loved James and she will fight for this child the same as she did him. She will protect it until it dies, same as James, same as you. Her pain was a reminder that motherhood is exactly that. It is a blessing, but it is also pain." she adds. 

"I believe I understand."

"You do. And you will thrive. You will see things you never imagined, you will feel and touch and taste in new ways. Your power will flood everything around you and your light will keep you safe. It is time for you to return to your plane now, my child. Your child's father will call upon you soon. As he is being told by his own mother of the news the same as we are. I will be with you. And if you truly need me, know that I will come to you. If I do not, you do not need me. Not truly. You are the most powerful of our kind in ages, Sylvana. Remember that." 

"Yes, Mother." she says, taking her hands into hers and kissing them, holding them to her face and nuzzling against them. "I will make you proud."

"Make yourself proud." her words fade into a fuzzy sound, Sylvana's eyes closed and feeling everything fade away. The sun retreats, the bloomed flora fade into nothing and she is left in her bed alone. Well, not truly alone any longer.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW   
> The situation they find themselves in leads to some deep reflection for them both, particularly Sylvana. She and James come to a mutual understanding of their new partnership and explore what it means to be newly dependent on the wellbeing of another person.

The birds have already stopped singing their morning greeting by the time she is able to pull herself out of sleep. She turns and rubs her face into the pillow, a groggy mewl escaping her as she takes a deep breath and tries to rise from the heavy tiredness that seems to be holding onto her every cell ever since her bleeding had ceased.

Her first thought is to food as she makes breakfast. Her stomach rumbling as she ate bread while she prepared, the cause of this hunger seeming to be far too impatient for her to wait. She eats twice as much as usual until the gnawing stops, then feeling full the brim she sloshes her way through the chores that need tended to. It occurs to her as she feeds the animals that she would have to leave at some point. The fact kept Creeping up on her ever since she’s been informed of the change to come. She didn’t know whether it would be soon or not, James was never one to share more than was necessary and he’d been unusually Quiet as of late. Especially for the heaviness of the subjects that they needed to discuss. But she was unaware that he was currently so engrossed in his own heaviness that he had no time to reach out to her, but he knew that would be changing soon.

She felt her mood shift, a swift sadness taking her over as the thought of leaving her friends and the place she loved welled up inside her and showed itself through her tears. She had been born in her home, and up until alarmingly recently she had thought she’d be there so long as to die in it as well. But apparently the simplistic existence she had envisioned for herself wasn’t what she was meant for. She suddenly feels a new empathy, a new understanding for the heroes of the stories she read and heard growing up. What she did have that most didn’t, was a reassurance that things would end in her favor. She assumes this information was given to her because otherwise she might not be able to push through what would happen. And that did worry her.

She lays on a soft round chair in the floor in front of the fire. The chores finished and her energy dwindling down to nearly nothing.

“I’m so tired. Will it always be this way? Is the child doing this?” She says as she fights to keep her eyes open and head forward to gaze into the flames for answers. 

“James.” It responds in a whisper.

“He’s doing this?” She asks with confusion evident in her voice.

“You need him.”

“Need seems like a strong word.” She says, not wanting to accept the answer. She’d never needed anyone. Certainly not a man. “I’ve grown fond of the scamp it’s true, but how can he help? He’s only a man.”

“He will help. The child needs him. His darkness.” It elaborates and she sighs. She sees now that her getting what she had wanted in her deepest desires, continuing her bloodline, making her mother proud and keeping the old ways alive would be coming at a cost, and at the expense of the comfort she’d been living in.

She surrounds herself with her spellwork candles, all anointed and burned to various lengths, purified along with the cloth she knelt upon. Her bowl made from a clear quartz geode held the mixture she’d concocted to serve her needs. With her various quartz jewelry and amulets, the stones charged and resonating, she encircles herself with them before settling in a pose of concentration. She whispers her wishes into the air, in the fire, into the water in the bowl in front of her, visualizing herself connecting to the earth under her body. She spills her worries, her wants and dreams to the spirits and surrenders to the order of the Mother. She casts protective barriers for herself, symbols drawn upon her skin with pastes and powders. She includes the child as its own being, even if they were working as one still, she tried to find it within herself to connect to it, to feel that maternal energy so ancient and resilient. She marks her stomach with the same intentions as she did her own body.

As she connects to her own feelings on the subject of motherhood. Her emotions begin to swell just as her stomach will. There were many things buried within her that she had been ignoring and denying. Things that didn’t work cohesively with her reasonable and sensible way of thinking. In her suppression of her feelings, the comfort of routine and denial she had been in, she had become falsely inflated with the thought that she had control.

She felt small, vulnerable, and alone with this humbling reminder. For the first time since she was a child she lets herself feel these things. From it comes a great warmth, a blooming of deeper understanding. She sees now, for life to be fully realized, to flourish and grow, there must also be pain and honesty. Particularly with oneself. All things a mother should impart to a child. Things she hadn’t been with herself until now. She did crave a certain softness that came with these things. She wasn’t immune to hurt. As a woman she felt deeply and it could be used for things beyond spellwork now. She would be a mother soon and a child requires one to give so much of yourself up to it. She wanted these parts to be as good and love filled as possible. She knew she had plenty to give.The tools of survival grown from her being alone were no longer needed, because she would no longer be alone. 

The realization makes her cry, her shoulders slumped as her hands rest on the floor. She didn’t have to always be so indifferent in the name of being logical. She could let herself feel that love that she had wanted to. She could entertain the thought of being loved in return, now by her child instead of a man. She would have the things she had wanted as a child, and denied the existence of as an adult in the name of reason. She sees clearly now, from the path that she had been put on, that there was no purpose to cut off parts of herself any longer. She must use every piece of herself to make it through this upcoming challenge and even the pieces that she had deemed useless before, she know saw a purpose for. She was light. She was life. She was love and she could still be strong and soft at the same time. She could and would be every bit as wild and resilient as Mother Nature herself. She would give life, bring death and nourish and change. She would not always be understood, but that was not her purpose. 

She closes with reaching out to James, sending the light within her to him, to keep him safe and well. With their connection already growing stronger, she unintentionally calls to him.

“James.” He feels her words whispered into his ears despite the loud thud of hooves and wind whipping past him. It was a voice He now knew well, and one that wasn’t entirely unexpected. He had so little time, he hadn’t been able to tell her of his journey to meet with her about the new development between them. She was now part of his league, and a vital one at that. She had to know what his plans were, what he was up against because she could hold all the answers to his success in the dangerous and foolish next steps to get what he wanted. “James.” He bears again like a contented sigh of a lover after sex, the sound sending warmth across his skin. He slows his manic pace on his horse, feeling the rage from the events of the past few days disrupting his well laid plans fade as her energy grew within him, feeling as if warm honey were being poured over his skin, taking away the tension in his muscles.

With panting breaths from both he and his equine companion, they stall on the side of the road to gather themselves. James sits up straight, stretching before another sound hits his ears. That of hooves. Multiple horses and thus multiple men coming up behind him. Perhaps she was not reaching out to forge a connection, but warning him instead. How she knew men were following him was not important. Only how he reacted now was.

With the direct communication between him and his horse it lies on the side of the road waiting to stop the men who would certainly have questions. James blends into the thick foliage, hovering near the ground with his dagger and gun. With their chatter of whose horse it was, and the rush in which they stopped he could feel their intention to harm him. He could see Sylvana was already proving herself more useful than he had ever imagined her to be for him. With a swift death by gun for some, a painful death by knife for others, he takes them out and wastes no time getting his plans back on track. 

With her protection work finished, Sylvana allows herself to rest. Reclined on her bed, dinner cooking, bubbling away in the hearth she moves her fingertips lazily across her stomach. It was so strange, her body didn’t look any different to have such a profound thing inside it. She knew that would change, and perhaps with the growing acknowledgment from her body the whole situation would begin to seem real as well. Whenever she thought about the future it made her emotional. Something she had never worried about until now. But then again, she’d never let herself. Now she was an open gushing fountain of life and all the messy emotions that came with it. She knew this free living, this honesty for herself and her wants and needs would serve her but she longed for the day she already felt as if her vulnerability would be second nature to her. As of now it felt as if nothing had changed, but as he did often to others for his own gain, James would be disrupting her quiet reflection and bringing a great wave of change soon. She was the last piece to finalize to his plan of revenge on the East India Company and the bringer of his last moments of peace until he was free and on his boat to the America’s.

With a hasty dismount, patting his horse with a loose tying of its reigns onto a post by Sylvanas door he stands in front of the old wooden door to her home. He was suddenly hit with the thought that perhaps he shouldn’t just barge in. But a police knock was so out of the ordinary for him he hesitated with his hand raised in its taut black leather glove. Before he makes another move Sylvana opens the door herself. 

“Hello James.” She says, her appearance softer than he recalls. 

James, not the one for casual or formal greetings gives her a nod, finding the words to say to be lacking for the unusual given situation.

“Did the journey find you well?” She asks, the locks on her doors already replaced from the break in as she clicks them all shut, but it doesn’t make James feel trapped.

“Did you not know?” He asks with a turn of his head, taking off his hat to place it on her small table.

She shakes her head, her robe pulled to by small hands as she approaches him timidly.

“I heard you. You were reaching out were you not?”

“I was doing protective wards for you and I and… the baby.” She says with her eyes looking away from his, feeling suddenly short for words.

“I heard you. There were men following me I overlooked in my haste to get to you. They came upon me when I stopped and I killed them. I do not know if they were American or Company.”

“Americans are after you as well?” She asks with a bent brows full of concern. 

“There is much to tell you Sylvana. Let us sit and discuss it.” He motions to the bed. “Come sit here. Best we keep you comfortable in your condition.”

She gives him a curious glance. Concern for her comfort was new, but entirely welcome to her. But now he had stake in how she was too, so it made sense to show compassion to her.

He tells her of his plans, the fight over Nootka Sound, the Americans and their spies, the Company and their past together, it all comes together down to the current moment where he was planning to do his most foolish act yet.

“Are you certain getting taken to the tower is a wise choice?”

“Wise? No. But it is how I will acquire what I need. I will be betrayed and it will set in motion my plans. And with you and our connection now you will help me Sylvana.”

“I’m afraid the tower is no place for me. I would not fair well.” She says with a shake of her head.

“You will be with me here.” He says softly with a fingertip, now bare against her temple. “You are the key to keeping me well inside and letting me know my orders are being followed.”

“How do you propose that?”

“Through our shared connection.” His pointed finger now directed at her stomach. “Your powers are growing, and your spell work will reflect that. If we work together it would aid me in securing what I want. What we need now that we have the child to consider.”

“I have been growing stronger. Unintentionally so.” She agrees with a nod. “We must stick together. I’ll do what needs to be done to keep you safe.” She sighs at her last statement.

“You will come with me to America. There is freedom there from our burdens of society. We can have everything we want Sylvana. I’ve been told so.” He gives a confident nod, leaning in and speaking intently to her.

“As have I.” Her eyes are wide and honest, looking back into his. 

“You will help me with these plans. Because of you I will secure my place in my seeking of revenge. You are giving me things no one else can Sylvana. Because of you and your power I can keep my promises, complete my work. No one else can give me what you are. Your existence and mine are now interlocked.”

“I will help you James. I’ve been told we will make a great journey together. And that I need you as well if I want this child to flourish. And I do, it will give me what I’ve wanted most of we work together. And I am ready to do that with you.”

“I understand how vital you are now to this success. We can help each other. First we will defeat my enemies, and find our freedom. Then we will take this journey. Together.” 

“I’ll come with you. But I have never left this place. I do not know how I will fair.” She admits and he appreciates her candid nature of speaking with him. He was fond of her honesty. “I’ve never been with child before. I will become worrisome at times. Everything is changing so quickly.” Her voice drops to a whisper.

He finds her vulnerability contagious, her softness something he now wanted to explore instead of dismissing it. “I will have a doctor on the ship and supplies. You will have your own space with me. No one will bother you. We will be on land before the child comes. And I will protect you.” He pauses, giving her a supportive nod that earns a meek smile from her. “We have much to lose and I do not plan to have this opportunity taken away.” She can feel the heat in his words and that he means them. Perhaps the instinct to protect wasn’t paternal in nature, but it was there. 

“I can accept these terms.” She nods. 

“I am relieved at your cooperation. I could not do this without you Sylvana. Know that I know how vital you are to my success and my behavior will reflect this.” He promises, something he did not do lightly.

“We will make this hard journey together then.” Her voice is soft but full of enthusiasm, reaching out gingerly for his hand, placing her smaller one over it as it rests on on the bed between them. She wanted to feel trust and harmony and connection with James. Things that were not second nature for him, but she hoped her light could persuade him to grow with her.

“It is of the utmost importance. I know I am not a man who is easy to be companion to.” He admits with a low brow, looking to her hand that still sat soft on his own. “But no one has understood me as you have since I came into understanding of my gifts.” He raises his head back to meet her honest eyes. “But you are a very capable woman.” He says with a nod, moving his hand to take hers within his own. He knew how to show tenderness to manipulate others, knew the steps and words and actions. But he did not want to be dishonest with her unless it was required. He didn’t need to manipulate her, they working together for a common goal. So he tries to recall being open with a woman. What they wanted and needed, as her light was bright and his darkness was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. He had just as many things to realize and work on as she did to become a father he would be proud to be. “Intelligent, powerful, honest and reasonable. I will always be clear and precise with what I need from you. You be the same. I will protect you and this child, and preserve our power.” His words were not sentimental, but she hasn’t expected that. They were however a promise to their partnership and that was most important. She could feel him trying, his face softening, voice not as short and harsh as she’d heard it in the past. 

“Thank you James. These words from a normal man would be the sweetest Id ever heard.” She gives him a smile, something he still was not used to being directed his way, and one so loving at that. 

“This is not a declaration of love sylvana. Let me be clear.” He would not mislead her. He did not believe even with her endless light that he would ever be one to love romantically again. Not with the things he’d seen, done and knew. There was no love in the darkness, and that was what he was composed of on his most basic level. 

“I would not expect it to be from you. I am not under any illusions that this is romantic. This is survival, this is partnership beyond that.” She nods as she gives his hand a squeeze, a smile still on her face, surrounded by a halo of soft waves of hair. 

“It is however a promise to protect you and this child.” Show her you are not an animal. He thinks to himself. He reaches out with his other hand and touches her stomach. Making a connection with the fate that brought them to each other. “You are irreplaceable. No one else. We were drawn together for this purpose and I need you for it Sylvana. Just as you need me. Does that not mean more than love? Mutual assured trust in times like these?” He didn’t believe he could love her, but he could give her so many other things that love was composed of. 

“And from a man like you.” she huffs out a soft laugh, running her hand over his on her stomach.

His affectionate words and the making of promises from a man she knew would die to keep them bring out her light. She was literally glowing to him. Her eyes were green like the forest and deep just the same. Her soft pink mouth set in display of contentment for his attempts to show her he could be something more. “Yes.” He gives her back a subtle, but still there smile at her playful retort. “From a man like me.” He nods. Finding the interaction fulfilling but so against the norm. “What is it like to have the favor of the devil Sylvana?” he smirks and feels her powers tingling up his hands where they touch hers.

“I wouldn't know. You have never been a devil to me.” She shakes her head, interlacing their fingers as she bravely scoots closer to him, her light calling out for him loudly now. 

“And I never will be now.” He lowers his head near hers, only a breath away as he lightly lays his forehead to hers for a moment. They both feel a rush between them, sparks and warmth in bursting patterns when they would touch with affection for each other.

She saw his eyes soften, the lines around them fade and felt a different piece of him show through to her. Perhaps she had sold him short. Maybe he could be more to her than a man forced upon her by destiny. Maybe within the small moments of close connection like this, amidst the chaos their lives would bring, they could suspend the outside forces against them and be as one.”Are you fond of me James?” She boldly asks, a tilted head and no fear in her eyes that he finds charming. 

 

“I enjoy your company. You do not drain me as others do. The quiet, the peace you bring me is something I do not take for granted. Being near you is pleasurable.” He answers with a subtle nod, the mask of indifference he wore threatening to come back over his face. 

“Do you believe you could show me tenderness with this fondness?” Her eyes are hopeful and his darkness responds to the innocence within her words. It wanted her, wanted them to devour each other, it would want to make another gathering of their power in her belly if it could, the child being a force already between them that made him want to be close to her in a way beyond his control. This was a new sensation for James. Since Africa he had not felt this, and thought these desires to be long gone within him. But Sylvana, this powerful witch who was so unsuspectingly what he had needed to keep his promises was something he had never encountered. He was not shown what to do when you find your power match in Africa. He takes the slow steps his agile mind assumes he should in its vast knowledge. He could not be within his own head to such a degree around anyone else but her.

“Is it tenderness you need from me?” He asks with his voice light and eyes inquisitive. He brings his face closer to hers, an almost brushing of their noses to show her that her needs would be met by him. 

“What if in this condition I desire a soft touch? With this empathy, this maternal growth of my emotions, if my body full and ripe calls out for yours? Can you be gentle with me when I need it?” She asks, the undertone not missed by him as he feels her skin run hot against his. She was fire in his hands, where their skin met it ensued. A spark that was turning into a force of both creation and destruction. Bonding them together and breaking them apart individually.

“If you need something. I will get it for you. If you need me to act tame for you, to show your body mercy as it does it's work for me. I can do that for you, Sylvana.” He tells her. He speaks quietly and closely, only a breath from her now. 

“And what if I desire you to touch me with hands like a lover?” Her words are heated, no longer airy with innocence. “What if I want to be a woman in the arms of a man who needs her? Can you afford me that compassion James?” She asks, her hand that held his against her stomach now moves to her thigh. Her face next to his, a gentle rub of her cheek to his, speaking into his ear as that kitten within her shows itself, almost purring as she nuzzles against his face.

“Do you need that from me?” He leans into her, speaking into her ear. Finding her unorthodox show of affection to be soothing. 

“'It is what I desire from you.” Her lips wet before pressing to his ear, her nose grazing the shell of it and breathing him in. He smelled of the earth, something she knew intimately and found herself wanting the same of him.

“Then you will have it.” his voice now dark again, a rumble of thunder in it just as she had learned to expect and now enjoy from him. A flex of power against hers, feeling it seep deep within her as she exhales and shuts her eyes. 

“'Then show me.” She asks of him. Almost begging as her skin sweats, needing his cold resilience up against her to even her out. Her fingers part from his on her thigh, reaching up to coax him by touching his face, speaking while her lips grazes against the plush peaks of his own. “Show me how powerful we can be together.” She speaks slowly, lips sticking to his own as he feels a quiver deep in his gut. He once again found himself weakened to her, her energy pouring and overflowing now into him, across his skin like sunshine. She smelled like flowers and her skin was as soft as petals. He decided perhaps this was not weakness but a deep seated hunger that needed feeding, and he had intentions of eating up as much of her as she’d give him. For he only knew peace in her arms, only knew the total physical surrender inside her body. 

With open eyes, seeing hers shut, long lashes fanned out over soft pinked cheeks he presses his lips to hers. Her new willingness to open up previously closed parts of herself only serve to make her stronger. What they had felt when they’d slept together before clearly onl serving as an introduction to what was possible. Her hunger rises from her belly, a need doubled for James and his energy. What he thought would be slow, gentle to show her another side of him was quickly abandoned as he saw that was not the sort of lovers hands she needs from him. A teasing kiss quickly grows, a second round and her hands move to his face and neck, wanting to feel the pulse beneath his tanned skin. 

A deep moan emanates from James. His eyes now shut and rolled behind their scarred lids as his hands moved to her body and pulled her closer in his need for more. He could feel her pulsing beneath his palms, skin slick with sweat beneath her simple dress, feeling what he thought was a softer body than before from her. A stomach he could sink his fingers into and move her as he wanted, a soft barrier between them that felt so good against his hardened body. Her breasts heavier, larger in the slightest as his hands found them like beacons over her clothing. 

He catches his breath, feeling smothered by the power she exuded. He separates himself from her, even though it is the last thing his body wants to do. With black eyes and nostrils flared like a bull he stands, both glaring boldly with an ancient hunger between them. He removes his coat, kicking off his boots as she stands and disrobes as well, her hands fast to him as she stands bare in the light of the fire. Removing his shirt last and licking her lips as each sturdy piece of him was exposed she feels the wetness grow between her thighs, a deep ache she hasn’t felt before. It throbbed and pulsed, so sensitive and engorged, weeping for his touch. 

Tenderness, he thinks to himself, finding it hard not to want to eat the fertility goddess in front of him whole. How would he show her tenderness when his incisors wanting to pierce through her skin and lap up her life force. He wanted to taste her, to own her, to fuse together into some perfectly balanced ancient power. He was so deeply ravenous that he felt he would never know peace again, even around her unless he did so. 

She moves first, just as desperate as he was to feel something they’d both never thought they’d get a chance to before their paths crossed. Lips mash and teeth bite between pants and wagging tongues who drew long lines from one another mouths to capture the sweat that beaded on their bodies. As he held her tight about the waist, hands so strong and sure against her, he moves her to the bed and starts his attempts at tenderness. Large calloused hands drag needy fingertips across her flesh, leaving red marks behind in their wake. He touches every bit of her, his mouth on her hardened nipples and neck, hand now venture into that welcoming nest between her legs where she would give him everything he ever wanted.

Her sounds are soft and desperate. His deep and angry as they writhed against one another. At the descent of his mouth, his swollen and wet lips suck down her chest to her stomach as he speaks words she does not understand to her stomach. He could not bring himself to speak the common language, only his mother's tongue now lapping against the soft swell of Sylvanas stomach. He chants of how the child will be everything, give them everything and he will do the same. His hard brow pushed into her expanding softness, his teeth graze her hips before finding her thighs and meeting his lips to hers. 

She was drenched and her body begged for him. She was rich with blood under her skin, from both the babe and himself. Her clit so hard under his tongue as it jumped with every lick and suck of his plush lips against her. Her head thrown back in ecstasy, calling out his name in a voice that sounded like something he’d dreamed of as a young man. A woman beneath him, with child, her throat full of loving words and sounds for him and only him. Her voice was birds in springtime, laughter and innocence as it called out for him. She held no control over her body now, she gave over mind and soul to James with his head between her legs, her fingers feeling the soft brush of his wild hairs at the crown of his head. She’d never felt anything like it before. Every touch was so sensitive, building her up like a full cup, threatening to spill with each touch of his hands. 

He could feel her power blooming beneath him, her sex holding a burning heat within it as he showed her what affections he could afford. He was thanked in full by her power washing over him in beating waves. He moaned into her wet flesh, the power sending a warmth through his body, his cock twitching and balls feeling heavy as he lapped away, literally and figuratively drinking her up. Her power was so strong, triggering deep emotions from them both. She was drowning everything in light, life and love. Flashes of happy childhood memories through both of their heads, the moments they felt the most secure and loved passing behind their rolled eyes as she surrenders similarly to James in a display far more grand that she had ever had before. With her thighs tight and back arched, chest now gasping for air his darkness responds with a surge of its own.

He wipes his face with the bend of his arm in a grunt, holding himself over her as her hands moved to his chest, still beckoning him closer. Her eyes were glowing a green that could only be captured in a split second of perfect summer foliage. His were devoid of shine, now black as he gave over to her power. With desperation still so thick between them they join again, mouths now both speaking half words words from their ancestors to the other, the long since passed entities looked on in approval. This was a joining that was awaiting for some time now. Their power feeds the fire, once again a timid inferno in its hearth as they erupt in bursts powerful enough to give and take life as the fire contains the raw energy.

His animal instincts winning, but his human nature still fighting to be more, to show her tenderness she requested he fights himself into a position against her. Sliding behind her, her tilted on her side slightly, he feels the full length of her body against his as for a moment he feels that peace again. It is fleeting as she grinds herself still wet and hot against his hardness. His hand wants to wrap around her slender neck, but holds the side instead, keeping her face towards his. He raises her leg up as their tongues lap against the others mouths in a messy display of surrender, and with little effort, just as they were meant to go together he enters her with a heat that felt like the sun in the savanna in Africa. She shudders as he buries himself to the hilt inside her, her body already writhing and building again. Her small hands clutch his forearm that holds her face to his, his forehead pressed against her temple as his deep and demanding voice spoke those unknown words again. Clicking syllables sent a cold chill into her, every pump building her again as she became greedy for this new found pleasure. She barely moves as he holds her so tight to him, so much skin to skin, their sweat affording less friction as she jolted against him. 

She calls out his name, a clear warning with her bright eyes wide and fearless into his black ones. She was light and airy, he was heavy and thick, coming together with surprising compatibility as she once again sends her waves crashing over him. He lets out a long drawn out moan, one he could not control, something born in his guts that had been wanting to be released for so long. His power builds, causing hers to do the same, her surrender only serving his growing greed as his hand moves to rub her clit. She calls out in a cry, tears from her eyes as she felt so gluttonous for the pleasure he was giving her. With only his name on her lips she comes again, he devours her cries as they escape her mouth, tasting just as sweet as her cunt. Her body seizes and shakes, his pounding with hard and loud slaps against hers. Her hands shake, wanting more but not knowing if she might burst if she became more full. Her own power was thriving, reaching out and sweeping into everything around her with no control. His darkness held her tight, possessively and soaked up everything she gave with great greed and lust. 

With more ancient words, as dark as the woods and muck of the river he draws them from, they make her skin chill and bloom with goosebumps. She feels his cold hands around her throat, holding tight between her thighs as a sound not human grows from his chest. She bites his lip, his hand still furious against her clit as she begs for more from him. They wanted to drown in this. They were a team now, two opposing forces working towards mutual satisfaction. Pledging to each other to be a duo as was the direction of the Mother who knew both the light and the dark. And now they wanted to drown in the void of gray their pairing made. Together.

With an explosion between them that makes them both seize and cry out, their bodies shake, both with blood bringing nails into each others skin as as for a moment they fuse into one. Total surrender to the power, and a perfect measure of chaos and peace.

As they break free, coming back to their appropriate plane of existence, their eyes open, back to normal as if they’d just resurfaced from beneath water. They both gasped as if that was the case while their hands held each other’s faces and the raw vulnerability between them in that moment was enough to make the child content in its work being done for the night. It was fully charged, as were they and unknown to them, the entire surrounding wood.   
—-

“This will be the last time I leave you after such an act.” James says, holding Sylvanas hand, as she holds her dressing gown together with the other.

She gives him a smile that eases his concern for offending her. “Do not worry James. There is much to do and very little time to do it.”

“Mmph.” He nods in agreement. 

“I have plenty to prepare, pack and do as well. I will be awaiting your call and the man you will send. I do my best to hold tight to our plan.”

“I know you will. I will be seeing you before nightfall Sylvana. Do as Atlas tells you and all will be well.” He reassures her.

“I will.” She says, a squeeze to his hand before he turns to open the door, the night still in full force outside. As she turns to begin readying her belongings and spell work, she does hear him leave or the door shut. 

“Um. Do you have those knives I kept here after the attack?” He asks with an odd sound in his tone.

She turns to find him standing in the doorway.

“Yes. Why?” She asks moving forward, the cause for his pause becoming obvious.

“Seems as though we’ve caused a bit of a disruption.” He remarks with a light almost laugh. 

“My goodness.” She laughs. Her hand to her mouth to see the doorway totally covered in new growth of vines with large blooms covering them. “Looks like we did.” She lets out a sweet sounding giggle. 

The sound of her and the situation itself causes James to smile. He knew he’d be just fine under her very strong and capable watch while he put his foolish plans into action


End file.
